Human, Conditional
by Moonlight and Mischief
Summary: As humanity spreads into the far reaches of the universe, the remants of their history follow giving further question to what is right and what is human.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)

Dedication: To Peacewish, who gave me a love for _Firefly_ long before I'd ever heard of its existence.

Author's Note: This is my first crossover to be put in the crossover section so I feel the need to warn any random visitors that you will need some knowledge of both universes to get by in this story but especially in the Firefly world. It is technically set in the universe of one of my other stories but, hopefully, there should be no need to read those (unless you feel like making an author happy.)

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**Prologue**

**ooo**

If there is any one thing that can be said about humanity, it is that they are resourceful. When backed into a corner or placed in an impossible position, with wills of iron they can make amazing and beautiful things happen.

It is even more true when they have more powerful beings (like vampires) to help them reach their goals, like fairy godmothers in the old stories. (Which is quite a humorous mental image for some of the more human friendly vampires.)

Such was the case of the truly interesting (and quite insane) individuals of the Hellinsg Institute. More specifically the one individual.

Aidan Fitzpatrick.

Unknown to most of the world, the governments of the world had an under the table Alliance started by the United States and China. This covert group began to seize the opportunity of the rapidly developing technology to resume the idea of leaving the planet behind. While the world was unaware, they tried to terraform the nearby planets only to end in failure and then a halt to the entire program as the great plague of '32 came. (Though how much of the plague deaths that should have been attributed to opportunistic vampires has yet to be determined.)

Also unknown to most of the world (including everyone he knew and loved absent his parents) a certain Irishman associated with the Hellsing Institute was contacted to work on the reemerging project of an autonomous terraforming platform.

Within four years of his recruitment, the terraforming platform was launched and Aidan Fitzpatrick, at the age of seventeen, was world renowned in the covert underground and was, quite bluntly, filthy rich. By the time he left home, he had patented over a hundred items that he had created in his spare time. A worthy vampire from some perspectives but this particular vampire is extremely glad that he was 'corrupted' before he could be turned as the only thing worse than an evil genius is an immortal one.

All the same due to his (and others') efforts, when, late in his life, a worldwide famine led to what was termed the 'Vampire World War', the human race had options. Faced with the idea of living in a world populated by those that would kill and eat them or chance the new terraforming process, they took the chance. It was also put forth that another reason for leaving was the decline of natural resources, which in fact was the reason for the entire project to begin with.

It should be noted that in later years, this second reason (excuse) was claimed to be the only one. Some of the world leaders said it was to protect those that might want to go back but the vampires that tagged along chose to believe that it was more to being unable to swallow their pride enough to admit to their abject fear.

And so the human race set off for a brand new set of solar systems (quaintly dubbed 'the Verse') to settle a large number of planets and moons. It was Aidan's daughter, Shiara (a magnificent vampire, I must say) who took over as head of the terraforming project. The higher ups of the Alliance thought it was a grand idea as she would never die and need to train a replacement. (Regardless to what they may say, something is always lost in every one of those trainings.)

She also had a dedication to humanity due to her in-law's servitude to the Hellsing line. To the Alliance, she was perfect so long as Hellsing lived. She, her husband and his parents were the ultimate trump card of the newly establishing government. The ultimate way of keeping the command of the people in their hands.

As long as the Hellsing lived, two of the most powerful vampires would remain loyal.

Too bad for them that, ultimately, everything ends.

-_-Excerpt from the personal diary of Nikolai, Historian_

* * *

_AN_: Not a very exciting start but hopefully I will have the first actual chapter up by the end of the week.

Til next time.


	2. Time is Running Out

Disclaimer:

I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)

Dedication: To Metropolis Kid, who is awesome, kind and persistent. ^_^

Note: Don't you just hate when an author starts posting something then totally drops of the face of the earth? Oh...wait...(Excuses at the end)

I tried to keep this separate from the other stories of the same universe. It failed. While I do not think it necessary to understand the story to read the other ones, Michael and Shiara do have roles (more or less significant depending on the chapter) with little explanation as to their origin. It seemed redundant. So forgive me to anyone I may lose for this simple fact. They have their uses.

* * *

Time is Running Out

'I wanted freedom

_bound and restricted'_

The air tasted different, cleaner. Void of millennia of smoke and ash, it lacked the free-floating toxins that had flavored her home planet. Cleaned by the terraforming process, it was kept clean by the new advanced technology.

Seras hated it.

The sterile walls of the hospital were as unwelcoming on the exterior as they were inside. Cold and white they reflected the bright sun making her feel uncomfortable from the recent lack of nutrition. Still, it was better than the cold comfortless hallways within. Warmth, even then uncomfortable sort, was better than…nothing.

She should be inside, she told herself. Through the years and generations, she had made it just as much her job to support them emotionally as physically. She used her wisdom to advise them in times of adversity, to comfort them in times of chaos. And while she had known the too-stiff bride for too little time, she was an anchor of fond stability to Nathanial Hellsing. She knew that she should be inside offering him that same comfort again, giving him her unwavering support after the horrifying events of the morning.

But she didn't know what to say. For all the lives that had come and gone during her long life, never had she had to part with her spouse in one moment only to hear that her infant daughter would likely not survive her childhood. Immortality had once more cursed her with a lack of comparison and left her bereft of sympathetic words to offer. Everything she could think of sounded hollow and not enough to fill the void that was now carving out Nathanial's heart.

She should be inside but instead she was outside in the too bright sun breathing the too clean air.

Maybe she should take up smoking.

"It is rather unlike you to run away from a problem instead of facing it head on."

She looked over at the master vampire where he stood suddenly formed from the air beside her, hat firmly in place and casting a proper shadow over his features. For a moment she wondered again if he ever got hot from wearing that heavy cloak all the time but the thought passed and she sighed.

"Unfortunately," she murmured, allowing herself the momentary weakness of settling her forehead against his chest, "you are all too right."

His own features were muted, strangely lacking the emotions that transformed them into an assortment of expressions that varied from extreme humor to truly frightening. His only small concession to the turbulence inside him was the faint quake in his fingers as they stroked her fine hair. And then the moment passed and he pulled away from her with a small, ironic smile.

"Come, Seras. Let us go greet the last of the Hellsings."

oooo

When humanity realized the futility of the war they waged with the undead and began to flee to the reaches of the galaxy, Hope Hellsing refused. Almost single-handedly making the Hellsing Institute the globally recognized leader in vampire extermination she declared that she would not put all of her work to nothing and run away. It was a stand that she made and kept for years until the new Alliance approached her life long friend and sister and asked her to come with them.

And scientist that she was, she accepted.

Faced with the idea of losing Shiara and her husband Michael who had been raised as siblings along side her, Hope faltered. Though second generation vampires of the Hellsing Institute, they had never been bound to the blood of her family and were free to go as they wished. Add to it that if she remained behind she would be separating Seras from the miracle that would probably be her only child for over a century at the very least and her determination began to waver.

Still, it wasn't until her twin boys declared that they would stay behind and fight the good fight that she reluctantly agreed to go.

"We always knew that he was your favorite," Matthias had joked when she relented.

"Oldest son and all," Robert had added.

The light teasing almost broke her and it wasn't until they promised to send her regular messages until the Ark left transmission reach that they finally were able to drag her onto the spaceship.

She was the first to realize that the nature of Hellsing was changing.

oooo

"It is strangely…relaxing to see her with my daughter."

Nathanial Hellsing murmured this quietly as he watched Seras stroll up and down the long hallway, humming softly to the child nestled against her chest.

"She enjoys the role of surrogate mother and aunt."

"Do you think she would have settled down and had a pack of children had she not been changed?"

Alucard looked down at him with a wry expression. "If she hadn't been changed, she would have most likely died that night. But if she had lived a normal life…perhaps." His eyes grew unreadable as he turned them back to the woman at the other end of the corridor. "She always looked forward to the next Hellsing heir."

"And now she holds the last."

Nat sighed bitterly and silence fell between them as they watched the woman and child until the mortal man broke it a few minutes later.

"In some ways, I'm glad that she will be able to take more of an active role as surrogate mother if she chooses. It may be the last chance she has to be this close to a child."

"I'm sure she will choose to," the vampire snorted softly.

"Not that I didn't love my wife, mind you. I did, very much. Just…."

"Just not as much as you love mine."

There was a beat of silence as the blonde man stiffened, breath caught in his throat. Then, as if realizing that there was no malice in the vampire's voice, he relaxed and nodded briefly.

"Uh, sorry?"

Alucard chuckled. "You are not the first of my Masters to love her nor are you the worst in your affections."

"But I'll be the last," he replied bitterly.

The vampire looked down at his mortal master and frowned at the despondent look on the young man's face. Then, in an action so uncharacteristic as to give him pause, he reached up and pat the last Sir Hellsing on the shoulder.

"There are worse things than to be the last male of a long and noble line and there are few who should hold that role so proudly."

Chuckling, Nat looked up to him with a sad smile. "Is that supposed to mean that I'm not required to run off and marry someone just in hopes of having another child to continue the family line?"

"It means that all things eventually come to an end."

The last man of the Hellsing line nodded and turned his eyes once more to the two women he loved.

oooo

It could not be said, by any stretch of the imagination, that the Hellsing vampires looked forward to the long incarceration upon the spacecraft that would shuttle them to the new world waiting. However, there were upsides to the bargain. One event in particular was greeted with much joy and not a little humor.

After two centuries of 'living in sin', the executioners of Hellsing were forced into marriage.

"Not that I object," Seras had laughed, tearing her eyes away from the somewhat disturbed look on Aluard's face, "but why order that now after all this time?"

"Apparently," Hope chuckled dryly, "since he has no on paper connection with the Hellsing family through marriage or adoption, he is required to bunk in the dormitory for single men."

"Does that mean I have to bunk with the women then?"

"No," the older looking woman shook her head. "Since you are Michael's mother and he is married to Shiara and Shiara is listed as a member of the Hellsing family you are in the clear."

"This sounds very complicated," Seras mumbled. With a shrug she turned to Alucard who seemed interested at the idea of being housed with a bunch of men with no family to care should they go missing. After a moment he looked at her and shrugged as well."

Hope stared at both of them for a moment before letting out a sigh of exasperation.

"Wasn't that romantic?"

The actual wedding was, if possible, even less romantic. It had less to do with avowing love and more to do with signing paperwork and making sure all the documents got where they needed to go. In the end, the only noticeable difference were the simple gold bands they work on chains around their neck as the gloves of their sealing prevented them to be worn on hand. And even those were usually concealed by the clothing they wore.

It was then proven unnecessary as two days later they received word that an entire suite of rooms had been prepared for the family and their retainers in deference to their high standing.

Still, it was a bit of happiness in a somewhat bitter situation and if, in the decades following, Alucard occasionally came upon his wife looking at the ring with a rather un-vampire-like expression on her face, he refrained from commenting.

oooo

"And then the warrior princess, in the manner of the queen she was born to be, turned to the adversaries that had tried so often to kill her. Even though they had broken their own ranks and saved her life, she merely smiled and told them simply that she was going home. When they argued with her, she told them that if they wanted to keep her with them, they would simply have to escort her home."

"Really?" the little girl gasped, blue eyes wide as she stared up at the storyteller. "What happened next?"

"Tomorrow, little one," Seras chuckled, dropping a quick kiss on the girls forehead. "Now go to sleep."

"I'm not sure," Alucard drawled with a taunting grin, "if Integra would be flattered that you are using her story as a bedtime tale for her descendents or furious that you refer to her as a princess."

The petite vampire grinned mischievously as she shut the door behind her quietly. "Probably both. I'm sure she would have shot me a dozen times by now."

"Who is shooting who?"

The couple glanced back to find their son coming up behind them, curios expression on his face and file open in his hand.

"No one is getting shot, Michael."

"I was merely commenting on your mother's choice of bedtime story."

The younger man grinned as they continued down into the family room. "You always told us great bedtime stories."  
"I imagine they were run of the mill in comparison to some of the others told."

"Da always had a way with words," Shiara agreed, not bothering to look up from her work. "But you had a generally more hopeful bent to your stories."

"That's true. Fairy tales with happy and hopeful endings," Michael agreed as he walked over to join his wife in her work. "Haven't heard those in quite some time."

"Must be some time. I can't remember ever hearing a fairy story from her," Nat Hellsing wondered aloud as he put down his book. "They were always adventure stories or tales of what you got up to when you were younger."

Seras smiled, the expression slightly tight. "Stories thrive in their environment. Shiara's father taught me that."

"And this is a world where science thrives over magic."

The blonde vampire looked over to Alucard and nodded with a touch of sadness before turning the conversation in a different direction.

oooo

A lot of the events one would imagine happening upon the colonization of a new world had already come and passed by the time the Hellsing troop had set foot on the planet they would learn to call home. One of the last Arks to leave, they arrived some three years after the first and through the available communication, much of what those on the later ships would have seen done was completed. So it was that when Thomas, Olivia and Phillip Hellsing, Sir, Lady and scion of the Hellsing household, stepped from the ship on which they were born, they were almost immediately able to set foot into their new home.

Built much like the ancient manor home that they had never known, the mansion was expansive and given a plot of land large enough to accommodate anything the family should choose to pursue all within the confines of the world capitol of Londinium, New Cardiff.

"Does anyone else find it slightly ironic that they named the capitol after a city that most Londoners found almost beneath their notice?"

Torn from the somewhat surreal moment of walking into a building far more similar than was comfortable to the building that they had stepped out of one hundred and twenty years before, Seras had smirked at her son.

"More than even you understand."

Yet, for all the strange similarity, the world they stepped onto was indeed different from the one they had left, physically as well as idealistically. Whereas the Hellsing Institute on Earth had been a monument to the protection of its country from monstrous threats both foreign and domestic, on the long voyage over, their power had shifted from war waging to political. Though it was never explicitly said, it was understood that just as they had been given an allotment of land equal to any of the elected officials that had stepped off their ships, they would be expected to play their part in the vagaries of politics.

For when the words of men fail, the Hellsing slaves were to be the threat of power.

oooo

"Mum doesn't like it here does she, father?"

Alucard looked up from the book he was currently leafing through to glance across the library to where his wife sat with the last child of the Hellsing family. Two blonde heads bent over a section of homework with similar grins of childlike joy. For a moment, he let himself be captivated by the sweet sight of his centuries long lover at her happiest before turning to look at a son whose features were all but identical to his own.

"Even though you are her child, Michael, I know that you see your mother as a sort of innocent soul. One of the valiant innocents of life that will remain pure despite how much the sins of the world try to stain them black."

After a moment's thought, the younger man nodded.

"And, yet, you wonder how, through all these years of peace in a world that allows such innocence to thrive, your mother seems to lack the happiness that all of this provides."

"Yes."

Alucard put his book gently aside and turned his eyes back to the two at the table, giggling at some school problem or another.

"This world that we live in now is a world of words. Words that should never be taken at face value and which can be turned and interpreted to meet the expectations and understanding of anyone as they see fit. It is a world that thrives on artifice and smiling all while twisting the knife in the back."

"Politics."

"Indeed," the Lord Draculea smirked. "But your mother is pure. And as contradictory as it may sound, she is a soldier. All of that will and all of that strength in her that allows her to remain free of the grime of humanity, it is all channeled into the ability to fight for what she believes. Like a chivalrous knight on a crusade, she is meant to stand sword in hand against those who would tear away at the faith in which she believes."

As they watched, the Hellsing child, growing steadily past her first decade despite all claims to the impossibility, gave Seras a kiss on the cheek and made her way merrily out of the room. The more steps she took away, the more brittle the vampire's smile became until once more she sat, blank of face, staring at the portal into –and out of- the room.

"To put it simply, Michael, your mother is drowning in the façade of peace that gives her no cause to fight for."

oooo

For any fault of government that may be, when told that they have available counsel from those who have spent centuries in the world of man, any ruling body would clamor for the insight that such a thing would offer. What better way to see how a law passed or a decree given may actually affect the masses than to ask one who has seen history for so many years? Given the opportunity to chose they council between a warlord and master politician who had celebrated his millennium of birthdays or the orphan turned soldier and advisor to a paramilitary institution, the choice was obvious.

They chose the orphan.

And so it was that Seras spent far more time wandering the Parliament building than she ever wanted. She couldn't blame the politicians for choosing her far more even temper over her somewhat psychotic former master, but she did allow herself to be irritated by it. Even more so when she began to realize that she was looking forward to years upon years of asking completely foolish questions that could have been answered by common sense had they taken time to consider it.

As an open advisor to the entire seated government, she was not given an office and instead was kindly asked (told) to share the office of whichever official she was helping at any given time. While this might have seemed good in idea, what it equated to was spending her days traversing the length of the rather expansive building several times as she was called on by one member or another. If it had been a concern, she might have taken delight at an opportunity to keep her girlish figure intact, but as it was she usually found herself cursing the idiot who had first imagined high heels into existence.

"You could always take to wearing ballet flats," Lord Masters commented as she collapsed into the chair in his office and kicked her heels off with a grateful sigh.

"And give them an even better look down at my cleavage? I thank you, no."

The Parliamentary lord chuckled as he lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. He was a largely colorless man, pale skin matching pale hair and pale eyes. Some of his fellow committee members would say he was largely colorless in personality, too, but Seras knew otherwise.

"It is still better than your old uniform," he commented with a grin. "Imagine the lascivious looks you would receive if you wore a mini skirt and thigh highs through the halls."

"I don't want to even think about it," she chuckled. "As much as I occasionally miss the freedom of wearing so little, I was more than a little glad that Alucard threatened to burn the uniform if I didn't stop wearing it. Button up shirts and lady like skirts are more than appropriate for my age after all."

"Even if you do look like a teenager on the cusp of adulthood."

"And what of you, Nikolai? Aren't you worried that they might notice one day that you don't age?"

The nearly colorless and almost completely ageless vampire chuckled and shook his head.

"Have no fear, my dear. The man that they know as Nick Masters will slowly begin to age and then retire, just in time for his son, who looks so much like him, to take up the mantle of politician and take his place." He smirked at her somewhat admonishingly. "It is a simple trick, and one that you should have already learned, to change one's appearance in accordance to one's needs."

She shrugged. "I see no need. I am me and I have no intention of pretending otherwise."

"And since those who would make your life hard already know of your nature, you have no need to."

"You know," she began as she stood and once more slipped the torture devices upon her feet, "you never did tell me why you chose to step out of your shadow historian role and into the limelight of politics. It doesn't seem like you."

Stamping out his cigarette, he stood as well, walking her to the door as the official day ended and their sham of a meeting became useless.

"Because, my dear, just as your new little lordling feels the need to negotiate peace amongst the settlers in the worlds far off, I see the need to see to the interests of those a little closer to home. This government has the potential to cause a great deal more harm than any that came before."

"Let's hope that it doesn't," she sighed, stepping from the office and into the echoing marble halls.

"A fool may hope, Seras Victoria. A wise man plans for the eventuality."

oooo

The Hellsing child that was never to survive childhood grew into a beautiful teenager. Her blonde hair and blue eyes, the hallmark of her family, were bright and shone with health beyond what she was told she would ever have. For all her illness, her spirit was high and her will strong, a true child of a long and noble line.

She, in fact, lived to see the end of her father's life.

"It is better this way," she solemnly decided as she stood at the gravesite next to the four vampires that were all that remained of her family and institute. "No parent should live to see their child die."

Seras, who had lived to see many that she felt as a mother towards die, clutched her hand in silent solace.

"But I'm not quite sure how to go on without him," she summed up, staring at her father's grave.

"There is no one way how," the vampire replied quietly. "But you will find your way. You are the culmination of generations of a grand and noble family, daughter of a truly exceptionally wonderful man."

"He was wonderful. Still…."

"Still, you are not alone."

"Thank you."

oooo

Slowly, over time, the last scion of the Hellsing line began to release those bonded to her. She started with those hired on that lived away from the mansion. When they were all gone, she moved to those who lived in her home. What servants, she asked, did a single person need? She could care well enough for herself with Seras and Alucard at her side. She was not that weak after all.

A year after her father's death, she 'freed' Michael and Shiara. For years, decades really, the scientific world had pleaded that they leave the Hellsing household. They were the foremost authority on much of the technology humanity used and were the best people to teach the verse how to use it and to help them gain new advancements. And, finally, Hellsing decided that it was her duty to send them out into the Verse to help where they could.

A year later, she sent Alucard to do much the same.

oooo

"It is an exciting new program we wish to start, my lady. As of this moment, Parliament at times lacks the ability to act quickly in emergencies. We must each deliberate and come to a decision over each course of action, taking far longer than most can afford to wait. To allow such a thing to happen is a crime to the laws and values that we uphold."

"What does the program consist of?"

"In effect it is the full training of individuals to act at the Parliament's behest. They will be trained in negotiation, peacekeeping, and law. They will be trained as officers of the law, investigators of ill will and crime. They will also be trained in combat and warfare."

"Warfare?"

"While we in the core of this new Verse are for the most part at peace with ourselves and the laws we hold, it is not so at the further reaches. Even your own father was taken by such bickering. Battles and wars may yet break out between peoples of a single planet or between more than one. How better to stop a war and see it ended quickly than to teach one the vagaries of such a thing?"

"That seems like an awful lot of power to give to one person, sir."

"Indeed, it is. The intention of Parliament is to give the entire power of this august body to one person to act as Parliament were but with far more expediency. They will only be sent out once Parliament comes to a unanimous vote in the session it is broached. If such a vote cannot be reached, they shall remain at their post and other measures will be taken."

"It seems like a very forward and potentially wonderful idea. And for this you are asking for our Alucard's help?"

"Who better to train others in everything I have spoken of but one who has lived for more than a thousand years? Who became famous as warlord and politician, legend of fear to his enemies and all but a saint to his own people. We ask that he join as a teacher and, if you allow, our first member."

"Where is this program to be located? He and his wife are quite fond of each other and I cannot imagine the Parliament would like to part with her guidance just to follow him."

"For the time being, it would be here in New Londinium. It may move one day but only as far as Sihnon. Should that happen, we would not require him to live there but to come as necessary."

"…Then I believe I accept, unless he has any strenuous objections. My father and my family always sought to be the hand that aids the people, whether they knew it or not. Oh, what is the program to be called again?"

"The Operative Program, my lady."

oooo

"First you send away my son and daughter-in-law and then give my husband a chore that keeps him from home most days. I am beginning to think that you are trying to keep me all to yourself."

The young woman smiled, mischievous glint in her eyes as the two walked through the cultured gardens of the family estate.

"It is not wholly untrue."

Her expression grew wistful and she turned away from her companion to touch her fingers lightly to a sweet smelling bloom. Seras watched her, as she always had, standing in the garden in a dress of watered rose silk before blooms of the same kind. Her hair shone gold in the light of the sun and for a moment, she seemed like a picture, a moment of time forever stilled and kept safe. But then she looked back at the vampire and the moment passed. Time flowed on and she grew older still.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know, Seras. Some would say that it is a horrible burden to live with the knowledge of death ever hanging over one's shoulder, but I cannot agree. In a way it is freeing to live only for each moment and to make decisions for things far beyond the grasp of what is needed now."

"In generations long gone, most of your family lived that way," the vampire offered with a smile. "Times are more peaceful now."

The girl nodded. "They are. And in times of peace it is people like you and your family that are most needed. Not to wage war and to destroy all enemies as you were sworn to do, but to offer your knowledge as guidance against atrocity."

Seras shrugged. "I have lived long enough to know that those things will happen regardless of what you wish or what advice you give. When given the freedom to act, not all will act well. Alucard at his most free is at his most frightening."

"Do you think he will wage war when he should offer peace?"

"I don't know. He has a sense of loyalty and purpose that is stronger than anyone ever born I think. He is ruthless in his pursuits for that loyalty. He has been away from politics and government for a very long time but I would not hesitate to say that if he gave his loyalty to the Alliance, as you have asked him to, he would do anything for their cause."

"And will he?"

Seras smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid I cannot give you an absolute answer to that either. We may have been companions for all these years, but that is long enough to know that you can never truly know another."

The Lady Hellsing nodded. "Then what do you think?"

The vampire sat down heavily on the nearest bench and braced her arms behind her as she looked up to the sky above. In such actions, she looked young again, casting of centuries of experience as she sought, like any child might, to answer a question they did not know.

"I think that he believes in a strong central government. He believes that people should be responsible for their own actions and suffer the consequences of committing a crime but above all they should hold fealty to those who govern them. On the other hand, he believes that a government should see to its people. When he ruled his lands, he did a lot to make sure they prospered and that crime and bribes to the ruling class were eliminated."

"That isn't really an answer, Seras."

Grinning, the vampire looked at her with another shrug. "Then I will say this. You have pledged your loyalty to the Alliance. So did your father and his father. And all of you have been people that Alucard approved of. All the traits that are good about the Hellsing family have been shown in all of you. And all of you give reminders of Sir Integra, who will always hold a special place in his, and my, heart."

"Thank you, Seras. That means a lot to me but…how does that answer my question?"

"You have given your loyalty to them. I think, then, so will he."

"I'm glad," the scion of Hellsing breathed in relief before turning to walk towards the house.

Seras watched her go, smile slowly fading from her house. Silently, she was glad that her Master did not ask her where her own loyalties lay.

oooo

"I don't like it."

Alucard looked over to the blonde lying on her side atop the nearly grandiose bed they shared. She faced away from him and between the ruby silk sheets and her sleep tousled hair, he saw little of the bare flesh of her back that she offered him.

"You are a trifle old to whine about being parted from me for a week, my draculina. Whatever other foolish traits you may have had through the years, petulance was never one of them. It would be a shame to start now."

He could almost feel her eyes roll in the ensuing silence and allowed himself a brief grin before her next words robbed him of his humor.

"I've been dreaming again."

"Oh?"

"I don't like this program, these operatives. No one man should have that sort of power."

Frowning, he crossed the distance of the room and reached to pull her to look towards him. "After this long do you not trust me, Seras Victoria?"

"No," she shook her head. "I trust you. I have from the very first."

His lips quirked momentarily at the simple pleasure of her ever honest words. "Then what?"

"Alucard," she sighed, clamoring to sit up while staying covered by the thin sheets. "You have years of experience that no man has. You have a great sense of wisdom and have had to endure the punishments of failure." She paused, worrying her lip in hesitation before looking at him with wide blue eyes. "They will not have that."

"Do you think that I will give them lessons that will encourage them to warmongering and ill fated actions?"

"No, but I think it is foolish to think that just by teaching someone something and telling them to do it, they will automatically do it." When he frowned she sighed but continued. "I think that giving all that training to someone and then giving them the full power of the government to act without question of retribution is asking for corruption. It is asking to make them into monsters."

His gaze grew cold as he looked at her. Seconds ticked by in heavy silence before at last he stood and made his way again to the door of the room. Once there, he paused.

"What do you dream of, Seras?"

"I…I can't be certain. They fade into shadows and often conflict each other. They do not show things near in time but farther away. But what they show are horrible things, master. Needless death of innocent lives. Children who had no place in a fight slaughtered anyway."

"Do you trust me, Seras?"

She sighed. "Of course, Alucard."

"Then please show it."

"Yes, my master."

oooo

"I don't think I'm cut out for politics, Seras."

"Me either," the vampire laughed. "Too much petty fighting."

"You know, more and more planets are finishing the terraforming process. Most of the Verse is now available to us. I would kind of like to see it before I die."

"Well…if you want, it wouldn't be hard to buy a ship and to make a tour of the planets."

"What…just the two of us?" The blonde woman frowned in surprise at the idea. "What about Alucard?"

"He and I have been together for longer than is sane really. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if spent some time apart. Especially for a good cause."

Lady Hellsing looked at the home that surrounded her, empty echoing hallways greeting her gaze. Then she turned her gaze to the sky and the ships that roared above the busy capitol.

"You know, I think that would be an excellent idea, Seras."

oooo

"You are leaving."

It was a simple statement made of fact and not of question. It did not accuse nor did it accept. A truth spoken aloud between the two to which it mattered most.

"To Hera first, I think. I want to show here the valley that inspired her name. I remember it being very beautiful."

She didn't look at him as she spoke, attention turned instead to packing her things. A motley bunch of clothing went into the baggage ranging from grand gowns fit for the highest social gathering, luxurious silks inspired by Companion guilds and rough leather more at home in the wild, rough areas that the settlers laid claim to.

"Why? Why without even consulting me do you promise to leave me and your Parliamentary duties behind?"

"Now who is being petulant, Alucard," she scoffed without glancing to him. "If you really wanted to, you could come with us. I will not deprive her of this. We all know that at any moment she could reach that critical point in the diseases development and take a turn for the absolute worst. It is my duty to Hellsing, to Integra, to see that the last of her line be happy in the years before her death."

"You didn't even ask if I wanted to come," he sighed. "You did not think of my responsibilities."

"I knew you wouldn't come, Alucard. You may not admit it but you enjoy teaching at that academy of yours. Training men to become monsters."

His eyes narrowed and in moments he was across the room, forcing her to turn and look at him at last.

"It is still about that? You said that you trusted me, Seras. Did you lie?"

Her eyes grew somber, a hopeless look seeping into them for the first time in the long time that he had known her.

"Of course I trust you. For all these years, I have never hesitated to trust you. I would follow you to hell itself if you asked it and believe that you would see us back again, happy and whole." She smirked sadly. "It is you who do not trust me."

Forcefully, she pulled away from him and sank down onto the bed to look at him where he stood staring at her. Even then, he tried to keep the shock and confusion from his face, unwilling to allow her to see a weakness and unsure emotion.

"I have followed you without question for almost five hundred years, Alucard. In all that time, I have looked up to you as a mentor, as an advisor. Even after all this time, you are still twice my age and have experienced things that I hope I never will. I have always trusted you and followed your guidance because, above all else, I truly love you, regardless of your often monstrous nature."

She sighed and looked away for a moment before looking back at him. "But in all that time, did you ever look to me the same? Did you ever think that even though I am so much younger and, in your mind, so much more innocent and naïve, that maybe I might know something myself? Have you ever once in all those years trust me enough to do the same?"

She stared up at him, unblinking as he looked on at her in a stillness so absolute he seemed but a statue. A moment passed, a fleeting set of heartbeats they did not need, and then another. Before she allowed a third, she stood, gathered her bags and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

* * *

AN: There were three primary delays to this. First, I was not and still AM not happy with the mood of this chapter. For someone who tries to at least mark everything with dark humor, it fails completely. That and starting a story out on a very bitter note (no matter how high it may get) grates against me.

Second, migraine season kills and after awhile when I finally started feeling better a lot of the inspiration to write this went away. Then I got really angry and got some more energy and poof within todays i wrote 6 pages.

Third, my desktop died. I have a laptop but it is...hard for me to type with any level of accuracy on as I am first and foremost a desktop girl. I'm trying to overcome this so hopefully there will not be another freakishly long wait. I apologize.

I will say that my muse for Hellsing is waning and for another fandom waxing so instead of looking for weekly updates it may be closer to two weeks to a month between chapter updates (my intention more towards the former than the latter but I like to prepare for all contingencies.) I have a deep and abiding love to both fandoms that this story involves so hopefully, once things settle in my life a bit more, inspiration will come and chapters will appear like magic.

Thank you to all the reviews to the very short prologue.

Til next time.


	3. Starlight

Disclaimer:I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)

Dedication: To Srar, whose rough encouragement has kept me writing for 12 years.

Note: Today's chapter is brought to you by nice weather and candy corn!

Okay yeah, longer delay than I wanted but there were reasons. For anyone curious, they are related below.

Enjoy!

* * *

Starlight

_Far away, this ship is taking me far away._

_Far away from my memories of the people who care if I live or die._

oooo

"Do you suppose we'll find King Arthur?"

"Probably not, but I'll be severely disappointed if we don't find some sort of surreal misting or something like it," Seras commented as she worked the controls to lower the ship into the atmosphere of the newly terraformed moon.

Within minutes, they were coasting in the lower atmosphere and, once through the clouds, surrounded by blazing sunlight that made both women hiss slightly. Waters and shining glass structures reflected the midday light as they made their way into port in the largest city giving grief to the ultra photosensitive eyes of the vampire pilot who had to veer sharply to avoid collision after the momentary blindness passed.

"Nope, no mists," the Lady Hellsing commented good-humouredly as she looked around the fairly clean docks. "Maybe we'll find a stray Pendragon?"

"We can hope."

The original decision to head straight for Hera was almost immediately waylaid as the two began to make plans and survey the maps of the verse. While neither had been solely confined to Londinium, neither had they had any say in where they flew elsewhere. So, like two children left home alone for the first time, they were more than ready to forgo reason and revel in the childlike nonsense of doing things just for the sake of doing them.

Which is how they ended up on the moon of Albion in the White Sun system of the Core as the lure of visiting ridiculously named moons ended up being far more than either of them could resist.

"Somehow, I pictured Avalon being more mystical and less…clean," the young woman commented idly as they exited the craft.

"Ah, reality, it takes all the fun out of everything," Seras grinned.

For a moment the two merely looked around their surroundings, a little overwhelmed at the absolute freedom that lay before them. Finally, the light of mischief sprang up in the Hellsing's eye and she leaned over to whisper in Seras' ear.

"Do you think the mayor's name is Merlin?"

Swallowing a loud guffaw, the vampire linked arms with the girl. "Let's go find out."

oooo

"_You are deserting me, Seras. I am wounded."_

_The blonde woman gave her companion a wry look. "You are going to yell at me for abandoning my duty to Parliament by running off with my wayward mistress?"_

_Nikolai shrugged diffidently. "Not really. I'm yelling at you for not taking me with you."_

_Stifling a grin, Seras shook a finger at him. "You got yourself into this mess, Lord Masters. I am not going to pity you for it."_

"_Fair enough," he shrugged, taking a drag from a half-spent cigarette. "Can't blame a man for being jealous though." Sharp eyes narrowed in on her after a moment of silence. "What does your husband think of all this? I can't see him willingly abandoning his duties at this stage of things."_

_For a moment, she stilled completely before reaching down to massage her feet. Her abandonment of duties came with a full workload of walking through and telling each member of Parliament that she dealt with on a regular basis that she was leaving. There were many of them._

"_You'd be amazed at how quickly you can purchase and custom fit a ship these days. We only bought it two days ago and now it is practically like home."_

"_Seras…," Nikolai began, voice caught between amusement and admonishment. "Alucard has been at the training place for the past week, if I remember correctly. He won't be back until tomorrow if he hasn't come rushing home at your news."_

"_It's been a while since I've piloted anything so hopefully it'll be like riding a bike and I remember really quickly," she continued on, blithely ignoring him._

"_You didn't tell him."_

_Finally the smile fell and she looked at him again. With a heavy sigh she sank back into the chair and dropped her head against the back._

"_No."_

_Despite having guessed, the older vampire frowned slightly at the admission. "Why not? Are you just going to leave without telling him at all?"_

"_No, I'm going to tell him when he gets home. Just before we leave."_

"_Good God, Seras," Nikolai groaned, lighting another cigarette and inhaling long and deep before staring at her incredulously. "I'm not that big a fan of the bastard but you are being kind of rough on him. Not only are you and your mistress going somewhere without inviting him, you aren't even giving him proper warning!"_

_Her head rose and the blue of her eyes seemed ancient compared to when they first met. His own gaze narrowed as he began to realize that this went deeper than a child running off to have fun without her master's permission._

"_Why?"_

"_Because I finally realized something after all these years."_

"_I hate to break it to you," he chuckled wryly. "He's always been an insane jackass."_

"_He doesn't see me. Not really," she answered quietly, hurt at the foundation of the matter-of-fact statement. "Even after all these years, at the heart of it all, in the basest of his thoughts, I am his former fledgling."_

"_Not an equal," Nikolai finished, comprehension and sympathy alive on his features. _

_She nodded and he sighed. Placing the still lit cigarette in the tray, he stood and made his way around the desk until he could kneel before her. Gently, he took her hands in his and gave her a sweet smile._

"_Well, dollface, if you ever decide you won't have him at all, you can always come straight to me. A man should be so lucky."_

_She grinned. "You are only saying that because you know I'll say no."_

"_No," he corrected with a wink as he stood up again. "I am only saying it so lightly because I know you will say no. If I ever thought you'd agree, I wouldn't hesitate to ask for you in every seriousness. Hell, I might just take you without asking."_

_Seras chuckled before rising and giving him a quick hug._

"_I'll keep that in mind."_

oooo

"So you are moving to Sihnon?"

Alucard looked at her with a glimmer in his eyes as he pulled her into his lap. It had been some weeks since he had seen her last as the two women flitted between the more amusingly named worlds of the White Star system. Since she left, they had come back to visit him (and her children when available) between weeks long forays to the next destination. They had barely arrived back when she was greeted by this piece of news.

"There is hardly any point in staying here, now is there?"

She shrugged diffidently, shifting her weight to get comfortable in his lap.

"Despite everything, I still like this house. It reminds me of home."

His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her. For a long moment, she met his gaze before tearing her eyes away, focusing on her fingers where the rest lightly on his chest.

"That little ship of yours not home yet?" he asked, voice layered with meaning. "You certainly keep to it. And away from me."

She let out a soft sigh as he began to nibble lightly on her neck. Her eyes drifted closed and her head tilted slightly to offer better access.

"Still too new to be home. You could," she breathed, "come and see it."

"After you sound so happy to leave me behind?"

"That wasn't the reason and you know it," she retorted curtly.

"Thus, I'm going to Sihnon. If my life companion feels fine to go abroad, I should be free to change residences."

The sigh that echoed through the room was as different as night and day from the ones that had been filling the air moments before. All signs of pleasure had been erased from the sound and the languid ease of the woman who had uttered it had been swept away as well.

"I'm not going to beg you to come with us. I'm not going to plead and treat this like its all my fault. It's not." She slid off his lap and looked down at him. "You can fix this if you hate the separation. You just have to say one thing. But you won't. And that is the problem, Alucard."

Slowly, in a movement reminiscent of a cat rising to stalk its prey, he came to his feet and was once more able to look down on her to meet her fierce eyes.

"You would have me beg instead," he chuckled caustically. "But, Seras, well you should know, I do not beg."

His fingers were feather light as they coasted up her bare arm. A light touch filled with indefinable promise and potential, it changed in an instant as his fingers clamped down on her shoulders in a vise like grip.

"I take."

Faster than the eye could track, he had her pinned to the expansive bed that took up much of the room. His fingers were fierce as they began to work at her clothes, effortlessly removing them from her too eager form. He was momentarily caught by the grin on her face giving her a chance to fight back. Reaching her hand behind his head, she pulled his hair into a fierce grip and yanked his face towards her. Their eyes were locked into each other, set ablaze by anger and desire, close enough that when she spoke, their lips brushed each other and the surge of emotion that flared in his red gaze nearly burned her.

"So do I."

oooo

"When I was growing up, there was a sort of character in a video game series that was named Shiva."

Seras didn't look at her companion as she worked the controls of the console to gain a safe landing onto the moon. Her companion, however, kept her blue eyes focused on the too neutral face of the vampire.

"Which is funny, because they made it a girl when in reality Shiva was supposed to be male."

"Seras…."

"And they gave her ice abilities which was also in fair contrast to the deity in question," the vampire continued on as if her master hadn't spoken.

"Seras."

"She was pale though so I guess that was something. Made me wonder though," she continued in an offhandedly-curious voice as she set the craft gently down at the dock. "I'm fairly sure that someone at the company had to have seen a picture or heard something about the god…."

"Seras!"

With a sigh, she turned her focus on the younger woman. "Yes?"

"Did you just run out on your husband again?"

The question was asked with a touch of humor and tried patience as if she were the older rather than the woman sitting in the pilot's seat.

"Again implies that I did it a first time, but no. We just simply didn't part on the best of terms is all," the older woman allowed as she got to her feet. "Now, come on. Let's not start an exploration of a brand new moon with jibes about my marriage."

The Hellsing rolled her eyes but let it pass. For the moment. At times she felt like a child whose parents were arguing. Despite every assurance otherwise, the idea that one fight might be the last and that the ideal couple she had been raised with might end hung heavily in the air of her thoughts.

Which must have been obvious because the blonde vampire stopped in her tracks and turned to look at her, apologetic and reassuring at the same time.

"Don't worry. It's just a bit of bickering. We've never been angry enough at each other to have a real fight that went on this long. Sooner or later one of us will get our way and things will be done."

She gave the younger girl a quick squeeze before once more heading towards the private quarters, presumably to gather a few things before disembarking. Still, as she watched, the little lost child in her wondered if it was more than either of them would admit to.

oooo

"It's a shame we didn't do this earlier," Seras commented as they stood on a wide balcony that overlooked the massive ocean that covered most of Poseidon. "I imagine learning the different mythologies would have been a lot more fun if we'd been able to visit the different planets and moons named after them."

"Probably," Lady Hellsing agreed, "not that most of these have anything to do with their namesakes."

"No," the draculina chuckled, shaking her head slightly. "No they don't."

For a moment, the two leaned on the wall that separated them from a long fall into a deep ocean. The air was rich in emotion and energy in the way only uncontrolled waters could be. Companionable, the silence lingered on long past the time when strangers might have spoken as each sought their own thoughts until at long last the young woman turned to her friend with a sad smile.

"You should go see him."

She shrugged, giving no pretense to not understand the quiet suggestion.

"It's been three months, Seras. Much longer than you ever waited before. What's stopping you?"

"A thousand things and nothing," the vampire whispered softly before turning to look at her friend. "You miss him too, don't you?"

Blue eyes misted over slightly before clearing and turning to look to the waters once more. "My life isn't as long as yours, wouldn't have been even if I hadn't been born this way. Some are even amazed that I've lived this long, I know. Three months is an awfully long time to not see someone who does mean a great deal to me."

"Far be it for me to deprive you of any pleasure, my dear. We'll go as soon as you are ready."

"You'll thank me later."

"I'm sure."

oooo

It was not unusual to see a woman enter a Companion House, though they were slightly less frequent customers. And the woman in question was dressed in silks so fine that if it weren't for her total anonymity, some might have mistaken her for a Companion herself. The deep hues of her gown shifted around her like water as she moved fluidly through the busy room. There were never enough people to make it seem crowded but even if there were, she would have stood out, so purposeful was her stride.

Without the slightest hint of hesitation, she made her way directly to one in particular. He rose from his reclined position as she approached and sketched her a fine bow when finally she stopped in front of him. Which, perhaps, was not the best idea. For a moment, she merely looked on and the two surveyed each other, emotions shuttered. And then, quite simply, she struck him.

In a series of quick movements, too quick for the stunned onlookers to do anything about, she had brought him low with full and hearty blows. Then, not a hair out of place or a crease of silk to show for her actions, she looked down at him, ire alive in her eyes.

"You have five minutes, exactly five minutes, to explain yourself."

"Yes, my draculina."

oooo

"So…not the best of meetings then?"

"No."

"Then where are we off to?"

"To meet up with Michael and Shiara on the terraforming platform on the moon of Persephone."

"So we are going to Hades?"

"And so can he, thank you very much."

oooo

A young woman sat at a busy control panel in a pristinely sterile room, from all appearances completely absorbed by her work. The control panel in question was on one of the many terraforming platforms stationed on Hades, the first moon of Persephone. One of the few moons left to terraform among the border planets, the first few years required the presence of all the resident experts to make sure that the process went according to plan.

And there was no one more expert than the redhead at the controls.

"Iron levels are higher here than on Persephone. There seem to be more heavy carbon deposits too."

"Nothing quite like creating a world rich in diamond deposits on a moon named for the keeper of hell," a voice chimed in from a speaker on the console.

"Not necessarily. Though, I imagine we _could_ do it on purpose and not tell anyone," she chuckled quietly in response. "I could buy up a large bit of land and mine it later to support me in my dotage."

"You are more delusional than I thought if you think they will ever let you stop working for them. You've signed your soul away to the devil of politics. Good luck getting it back."

For a second, the woman stopped in her workings and glared at the speaker but refrained from commenting. A moment passed in silence before the door to the room slid silently open and someone stepped in.

"How goes the work?"

"Just about the point where we can leave," she answered distractedly as a dark haired man approached.

"So she says. I'm telling you, they have your soul for life."

"Shut up."

The dark haired man looked at her and then the console with barely concealed amusement as if viewing an oft seen comedy duo.

"You know, you can always turn him off if he is annoying you," he suggested, voice not completely devoid of laughter.

"How ungrateful," the voice from the console commented. "I suppose you are thinking of replacing me with some monotone female computer voice."

"Perish the thought," the woman sighed before turning to face her husband fully.

"What's going on?"

"I just got a wave from Mum. She's on her way to visit before going on a tour of the Red Sun system."

She frowned slightly. "That is unexpected. I thought they were planning to go to the Georgia system next. Is something wrong?"

"Not sure," he shrugged. "I think she might have got into a serious fight with father."

"Ah," she grinned knowingly. "She must have found out about the Companion House."

"And probably didn't stick around long enough to listen to his reasoning."

"Serves him right," the console chimed in cheerfully.

The woman stood up, pulling a data chip from the console and carefully pocketing it, effectively silencing the commentary from the speaker.

"You know, they've been asking me to do a cursory checkup on the helioforming of Himinbjorg. We could go with her."

The man grinned, his face transforming into much younger features at the expression.

"I was hoping you'd say that. It's been too long since we've spent any real time with Mum and Lady T."

"Just let me tell them I'm leaving."

"Which will give her just enough time to get here and start mothering."

The woman's smile grew tender at the thought. "Just what we need."

oooo

"You know, mum, he did give some pretty good reasons for joining the Companion's Guild," Michael Victoria Hellsing commented carefully as he sat in the co-pilot chair of the spacecraft. "You really should listen to your husband before beating him in public."

A soft snort sounded from near the entrance of the cabin but Seras ignored both it in favor of calmly changing a few settings as they approached the false sun.

"It's not like he's, uh…," her son started before trailing off with a blush. No matter how old one got, embarrassment was always the emotion of choice when discussing the conjugal life of one's parents.

"I know, Michael," his mother sighed after a moment, looking over at him briefly. "He told me all of his reasons, none of which involve gross infidelity."

"Warm willing blood donors are always nice," Shiara commented, glancing at the blonde woman standing next to her with a conspiratorial glance before looking back to the pilot.

"Exactly," Michael persisted. "It makes sense if you think about it. They don't remember a thing, leave happy and pay him money to boot. It is a win-win situation."

"Oh that's all fine and dandy," Seras commented sarcastically, sounding for the first time like a young jealous wife. "Win-win for _them_. But me? Oh no. I get to watch him surrounded by beautiful women –women of his _choosing_ mind you – and have to move heaven and earth to see him with any sort of privacy."

Michael stared at her wide-eyed, realizing at last that starting on a touchy subject just as they were approaching a docking station might not have been the best idea. Glancing back, he found his wife and Lady T staring at her with a mixture of humor and awe as they watched the vampire rant about her husband like a common housewife. It was so uncharacteristic of her to criticize him in public as to be startling and vaguely surreal to the three listening. Even more so since she was still managing to work the controls with a second nature sort of ease.

"And tell me, Michael," she continued angrily, "have you ever heard of a married Companion? No, you haven't. They aren't really allowed to date much less get married. It is about as hard to visit him without paying as it is for a man to see the private living quarters of a convent! I swear if they ask me to pay, I'm going to strangle someone."

"Uh, Mum…."

"And of course he tells me nothing in advance, like the jackass he is."

"You tell him, Seras!" Shiara laughed.

"So of course I'm angry at your father, Michael. As usual, he just does what he likes without thinking about anyone else, like we are all expected to just accept it gracefully and move on. Accept it my ass!"

"Seras."

Like magic, the calm and commanding voice of Hellsing halted the angry tirade. She stilled completely before relaxing her shoulders and focusing completely on the careful docking process. Minutes crawled past in echoing silence as she executed the landing and triggered the airlock. Finally, she turned around and smiled at the room at large as if nothing had been said moments before.

"Well then, shall we explore our Norse mythology?"

oooo

Time seemed to pass very quickly as the three of them followed Shiara on her duties as Chief Scientist to Parliament. There were nearly a planets and moons in the miniature solar system they had crafted by turning one of the orbiting gas giants into a false sun and they visited all of them. Mostly named for various objects of Norse folklore, there was a running commentary of jokes as they explored and measured and met people. As highly placed figures in the shadows of the government, they had each been given a chance to name some of the viable planets and moons (even if most of them had been vetoed) and found no little humor in the choices of others.

The overall mood stayed congenial as they carefully avoided flametory topics and generally just enjoyed each other's company. It was so close to the familial environment that they had all so long cherished that they decided to extend their foray in the Red Star system and travel to the other false sun when fate stepped in and the return to the Core was unavoidable.

At long last, the last Hellsing fell prey to her illness and collapsed.

* * *

AN: So this insidious thing called school started...Yeah, I'm taking classes for the first time in like a year and, while that isn't so bad, for some reason my sadistic professors assigned me two papers, two exams, several quizzes etc. all in the first month. My poor little brain just couldn't cope with all of it in a timely enough manner.

Add to that that I had several pages written but not enough time to type them up (it takes some effort since my hand writing has about equal legibility as a doctor's) and that I couldn't quite decide where I wanted to end this chapter. Shorter, longer, shorter, longer.

I rather wanted to get to some of the Firefly cast in this chapter but it just felt like I wouldn't be giving them due time and credit to shove them into this chapter. There is story development there that needs its due process. So this chapter became somewhat filler as it we explore some of the Verse (there are FIVE solar systems btw, with the White Sun system at the Core) and I got into the meat of the non-crossover character development. I blame Srar for that. She gets me all thinking of how to psycho analyse and give greater dimension to borrowed characters. So poof, we have this interesting plot/subplot thing.

I am already at work on the next chapter though, so hopefully it won't be too long before its out. This time of year tends to be one of my most productive for writing so hopefully chapter turnover should be quicker and I won't leave the story hanging for so long next time.

Thanks for the awesome reviews!

Til next time!


	4. Space Dementia

Disclaimer:I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)

Further Disclaimer: The names of the planets, moons, systems and general structure of the Verse are not of my creation. I have stolen them from the various sources offered for purchase at the website Qmx. This includes the aforementioned Atlas of the Verse, the Complete and Official Map of the Verse and the 100 page pdf that accompanies the map. I have made some adjustments to some of the timeline given in the pdf but for the most part all of what I have has been crafted from the fine people who crafted those.

This also applies to various parts of _Serenity_ (the ship) that will be mentioned in later chapters.

Note: This chapter went weird. I'll go into that more below. Enjoy!

* * *

Space Dementia

We'll destroy this world for you

_I know you want me to_

oooo

She looked down at the rock in her hand. Not so much a rock as a carved stone, it still weighed the same in her hand – in her heart. Heavy and cold as she stared at it, unwilling to recognize what it was even as she knew and had seen to its crafting. Even then, after so many years of existence, she found it strange how such simple things meant so much and to accept that meaning would be to accept reality to harsh to be believed.

So instead, she turned her eyes to the fields of green that surrounded her and the fading of the yellow light over the tops of the waving grass. It was a moment outside of time and she let herself have it at the peace it brought.

oooo

"_This here is my boy, Malcolm. He's just a bit of a scamp now but he'll do his mama proud."_

"_Yes, Ms. Reynolds, I think he will."_

oooo

The trip from the outer planets of the Rim seemed to take longer than they ever had before. If she'd had to hazard a guess, she would put it to the lack of laughter on the ship. Death was no stranger to any of them and the fear of it less so, but still, as the small family took turns tending to the frail woman that was the center of their lives, there was a sense of finality that fell upon their shoulders.

Death was not an end, they were the greatest proof of that. Life continued on, often when most sincerely wished otherwise. But this was the beginning of an end truer than any of them had ever known.

Hellsing was nearly gone.

oooo

_Fields ablaze and the charred remains of a grand house and the stables beyond…red skies choked with smoke and death until even the sun itself had been swallowed and the screams of the dying echoed back down…endless lines of bodies, half alive but dying, screaming as they lay abandoned…innocent lives lost, sand stained skin and burning ropes meant for pleasure…screaming souls lost, violence and need.…_

oooo

She woke screaming.

It happened nearly every night since they made the return to Sihnon and installed the Last Hellsing in a hospital under the care of some of the finest doctors in the Verse. The routine got her kicked out of the hospital and to the Companion House and back into the arms of her husband. Still angry, both of them put aside the argument like a child putting a feed on pause. There were bigger things at hand.

Once awake, she would shake off her visions with a silent, pleading look and he would grudgingly accept it and let her go. She spent most days at the hospital, sometimes with him for company, sometimes with the others. All of them had obligations though and when the days stretched to weeks and then into months, even Seras began to stay away for a half – sometimes a whole – day.

In turn, he found other things for her to do.

oooo

"Assuming you have done your jobs correctly," she murmured with a touch of humor to the young girls that were looking at her eagerly, "you should never have to employ the techniques you learn from me. However, as they were wont to say on Earth-That-Was, better safe than sorry."

"Yes, Mistress."

Teaching glorified prostitutes self defense was never something Seras had pictured herself doing, but it did help pass the time. It also added a certain legitimacy to her presence in the Companion Training House, where Alucard – and now she – spent their nights. She also found herself taking a liking to the girls. The younger ones were still full of innocence and naivete as they took their lessons while the older girls had a thirst for knowledge that was endearing to their patient teacher.

"Now remember, no matter how small you are…."

"…with skill you can defeat even monsters," the girls finished with the droning sound of oft made repetition.

The vampire grinned before signaling that they were dismissed. Eternally polite and well mannered, they left her graciously and with some affection before going back to their dormitory to end the day. She watched them go, thoughts slowly shifting to a silent girl lying in a cold and barren hospital room.

"There is something entrancing about watching you teach a room full of willing innocents how to kill all while wearing a tightly bound court dress."

She glanced over her shoulder with a knowing smile, "Admit it, you miss the uniform."

Dark chuckling flowed around her before arms solidified in the action of winding their way around her waist. "The silks and satins on someone with the skills of an assassin and history of a warrior…it is a charming and novel contradiction."

"So glad you think so," she responded dryly, allowing herself to lean against his chest. "Funny how your outfit always stays the same."

"Fashion classics."

"Ah."

For a moment, they just stood and looked out into the wide gardens that surrounded the piece meal buildings of the Training House. The sun was soft and fading into dusk and for a moment, she allowed herself to let go of everything and simply be with him.

And, like a predictable man, he ruined it.

"Being here has helped you."

She sighed, closing her eyes in frustration. "Helped you get more sleep you mean."

"I do not need rest, Seras," he sighed, voice tinged with impatience over a well-worn fight. "Why do you still not tell me what scares you so much? You say you trust me but still…."

Her fingers lightly massaged her temples for a moment before she opened her eyes and looked up at him with an exhausted smile. "They are irrelevant."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not."

He gripped her chin in his fingers, pinching the flesh almost painfully as he glowered down at her. "You wake every night screaming, Seras Victoria. You must think me simple if you believe I do not recognize that these are the sorts of dreams that scare you. You scream at visions of things that have been and are to come."

Her eyes softened and she raised a hand to cup his cheek. "Thank you for worrying about me."

He sniffed dismissively. "You still aren't answering me."

"They _are_ irrelevant, Alucard. They are just images without solid meaning. I can't see when or how or why." She shrugged dismissively. "Why worry you with nothing?"

"I'd mention that waking me up every night screaming is not exactly calming but you are illogically female and would dismiss it."

She grinned before looking out at the sun again. "It's time to go."

His eyes narrowed. "Where?"

Her eyes lit up with relief. "She's waking up."

oooo

_"I trapped you here, didn't I? Stole your freedom with selfish human desires."_

_ "It is not like you to second guess yourself. I never felt like you trapped me. No more than I ever thought _he_ did. Things simply happen."_

_ "I trapped you both, playing at normal. And now you have an entire line of children to watch grow older and die. That is a curse."_

_ "Who knows, they may all end up being hateful and we'll be glad to see them go."_

_ "Ha."_

_ "It won't be forever, you know. Just as you were an only child there will be another down the road. All things end."_

_ "You know this do you?"_

_ "Maybe. I had a dream of a girl who looked a lot like you, paler though, standing beside me and looking out over a world that couldn't possibly be this one."_

_ "And then it'll end and you'll be free."_

_ "…Even if it doesn't, it's a burden I'll bear with love."_

_ "Until the end."_

_ "Until the end."_

oooo

Months continued to pass and she started to recover. Still, everyone knew that the end was truly coming and that Hellsing would see its end before the decade was over. Seras didn't say anything and she merely smiled when the moments got quiet. Alucard didn't say anything either, but then, he was never the sort. Instead, they just waited.

Even awake, the process of recovering from a full body shut down was not a short one. Always the Lady, she took it in stride though and kept her humor up when her visitors came to talk to her everyday. If they noticed that there was a bit of somberness to her that wasn't there before, no one said anything and she, in turn, sent them away with a cheery smile when visiting hours were over.

She had grown up knowing that this time would come and lacked the excess energy of a recovering patient stuck to long in bed. She should have been named Patience, Seras mentally commented more than once as she found herself plagued with the restlessness that hadn't infected her mistress.

Strangely, she spent more time out of the hospital instead of less. She excused the behavior with an ever-growing distaste for hospitals but deep down she knew it was entirely different. Every day she grew less and less accepting of the inevitable fate while every day the patient grew more. It was one thing, after all, to know that things would end, it was another thing to like it.

So, Seras spent more time with the girls of the Training House and less with her mistress.

Even Alucard knew not to comment.

oooo

_…a strange vial of a dark substance, a horrible secret kept silent…love turned to doubt, doubt to the decision not to believe, a relationship lost…a strange box floating in the sky, screams inside…one looking much to young for their age, another much to young for their youth…tears and recrimination and faith lost to betrayal deep…a scientist shaken and on the verge of the unacceptable…_

oooo

"Mum's going crazy."

It had been a rare moment of perfect harmony as father sat with child and bride, the soft light of the night giving a pristine quality to the setting that sunlight would only strip away. For a moment, no one spoke after the comment, obviously a leading one, but when nothing followed the redhead looked at her husband with a frown and his father snorted.

"She wasn't completely sane to begin with."

"Living with you for so long, it is surprising she is as sane as she is."

"Little Red, you might have a care for how much you jibe a man about his wife."

She grinned, nose wrinkling with humor before looking once more to her husband. "Why do you say that, though, 'Chael?"

"Would have thought it a little obvious actually," he replied dryly. "She still wakes up screaming every night, she spends all of her days at the Companion Training House teaching a group of girls she doesn't particularly admire and never seems to stop moving."

"She has been pacing a lot," she agreed thoughtfully.

"It is harder for some to accept certain things. She has the knack at fighting against foregone conclusions," the master vampire commented, his tone tired even as his eyes betrayed admiration.

"Lady T should be well enough to leave the hospital soon."

"Indeed. Our Master is a strong one and a fine end to her line."

"She says she wants to start travelling once she gets out."

The appreciation and good humor immediately dropped from the older man's face.

"Taking my wife away with her again," he muttered darkly. He bent his glower on his daughter-in-law with admonition. "You could have let that thought sit and let me enjoy the night, little Red."

Her answering grin was unrepentant. "I'm not going to play nice when the two people I respect most on the world can't stop arguing like children. If you don't like it, go fix it."

Her husband, whose silent musings kept him silent, gave his wife a look of pure adoration and admiration.

"You know, sometimes Shiara, I think you are the bravest person I have ever met."

"What can I say? I learned from the best."

oooo

_"Belief is the strongest thing out there, even when broken."_

_ "What do I believe now that I can't do what I was always told I needed to do? Who am I now that I know I cannot be the one thing I was?"_

_ "You'll find something. Maybe someone. There is always something out there to believe in, some cause to fight for, some one you need to love. Or, if you can't find something you can fall back on what has led men for millennia."_

_ "What's that?"_

_ "A book."_

oooo

"How long does it take to qualify for abandonment?"

She looked over at him with a sparkle of humor in her blue eyes before turning once more to packing her possessions.

"Years, I think. You won't be getting away from me that easily."

He snorted derisively. "A trifle unbalanced, I think. You can get rid of me and be away as long as you like. Does it strike you as fun to have all the power in our marriage?"

"It's a heady thought. I finally conquered all." Her humor grew more bitter, her tone dry. "Didn't even need a flag."

"You've spent two years here, waiting for her to heal. You joined the Training House and stopped making comment when I left for training of my own. For all that you say you hate this life, you fit into it pretty well."

Seras looked at him, closing the trunk with her belongings softly. He sat only a few feet from where she was standing but there were miles of understanding to struggle with. She knew, had always known, that his view of life and the world had been defined long before she was born. He was single minded, fiercely intelligent and believed harder than most people could imagine.

Slowly, she approached him and cupped his face with her hand, tips quirking slightly at his refusal to bend and accept the caress even then.

"You are being a little childish, Alucard." There was a beat of silence and she shrugged. "So am I maybe. But we'll bicker for a good while longer, I think."

Humor flared in his red eyes and he pulled her to him, settling her astride his lap on that ridiculous throne of his. She allowed him, settling against his chest and taking comfort from him just as she had since the first night they met. Whatever else she knew, she knew that she was for him. Her life had truly begun with him and she wanted nothing more than for whatever eventual end she would meet to be with him. At times like that, it was the only thing that truly mattered to her.

A knock on the door.

"Seras? We should be ready to go in a little over an hour."

She pulled away and smiled at him, the knowledge of everything they wouldn't say, the question they both refused to ask, hanging heavily between them. Then the moment passed, the opportunity of compromise gone, and she slid from his lap with a sigh.

"…too bad I just don't believe with you."

oooo

_"You will still die, you know."_

_ "I…I know."_

_ "This will just postpone it. Give you some quality of life as well."_

_ "Yes, thank you."_

_ "Make sure you use it, all of it."_

_ "The…medicine? But you said small doses…?"_

_ "Your time,_ jiao nu_, use every last second."_

_ "…I'll try."_

oooo

"It's beautiful."

The women looked over a wide valley stretching far beyond the realm of normal sight. Behind them, in the distance, was a small town more reminiscent of an Old Western movie than the high tech cities of the Core worlds. If it weren't for the Firefly Works shipyard just outside of town, the vampire might have thought she had flown them back in time rather than to the Murphy quadrant of the Georgia system.

That and the sight of abject poverty on the Rim was an increasingly regular sight to the new explorers.

"Your father said it was one of the most breath taking things he had ever seen. He compared it to the Grand Canyon on Earth-That-Was."

Her companion smiled, a touch of sadness dulling the awe in her eyes.

"Except pictures of the Grand Canyon show it being almost completely bare. This is almost entirely green."

"Difference between a canyon and a valley, I suppose," Seras offered with a wry smile.

Time slowed to nothing as the two stared out over the vast array of dips and shallows that made up the famous stretch of land. A good testing ground for newly designed crafts and a sight of pure beauty, it drew more than a few people to it each year.

Finally, eyes having looked their fill, the older woman turned to her frail companion.

"Shall we go tour the shipyard and report back to Michael?"

The younger woman nodded, a twinkle in her eye.

oooo

_…a twirl of fabric, light-hearted music…unending shots fire through an echoing space…the sharp involuntary breath of instantaneous death…unnatural silence in a place too still…a hundred voices shouting denial and the flutter of papers…the calm precision of a bullet loaded carefully into a gun…_

oooo

For the first time in her long life in this strange Verse more than a century away from the place she was born, Seras stepped off her ship and onto ground that felt like home. The sensation was so startling and sudden that she stumbled, nearly taking the invalid leaning on her to the ground before righting herself. More than a minute passed, blue eyes boring into her curiously, as she surveyed her surroundings and tried to understand the irrational sense of peace that came to her at being on this strange planet on the reaches of space.

"Seras?"

"I…I'm fine."

"I can see that," the woman chuckled softly. "Shall we go meet the neighbors?"

The vampire looked around her for a moment more before nodding slowly.

"Neighbors…yes."

"So we'll be staying her for a little while then?"

"Yes, please."

"As my servant wishes."

"Thank you, my Master."

oooo

Life away from the Core was more often than not a hard sort of life. Violence broke out everywhere and there were more people than police in most places. But, more than anywhere else in the new system the human race had colonized, there was a sense of honesty. Most people simply wanted to live their life. They woke up, they worked for their keep, spent their money as they saw fit, met and married, had children and lived with no laws but their own. Real, simple, folk.

Not that there wasn't a sort of bitterness that extended in one long line through the Border moons and the planets of the Rim. The Core worlds were bastions of civilization, sleek science and art crafted into cities that spanned most of a planet. Not everyone envied that sort of life and a good portion of those that lived outside the Core had sought to leave to find a simpler life away from corruption and sin. They were the new colonists of the new world, pilgrims and missionaries alike.

What they hadn't entirely been willing to leave behind were some of the most basic of technologies. Suddenly, they found themselves on worlds that forced them into using modes of transportation and qualities of life that had gone out of existence in the centuries before the Great Migration. There were no roads paved over the harsh landscapes and vehicles that could cover the terrain were only available to the rich. Horses and carriages became the normal standard fare.

And sickness spread.

By leaving the Core behind, they were unknowingly sacrificing a guarantee to good medicine, to the chance of wealth. For some, that was still more than fine. They would live their lives proper the way only people could. The Core could keep its technology and its medicine and everything else too. They were perfectly willing to live their lives as they saw fit.

Which was something the Core was not really willing to allow.

oooo

"Mal, do you listen to anyone but your mama?"

The little boy looked up at her with glee in his eyes and shook his head.

"This here is my ranch, Miss Vicky, ain't nobody gonna tell me what to do on my own ranch but my mama. It's her ranch too so she has that right."

"Brat," Seras laughed, cuffing his head slightly. "Go on to your chores. We'll finalize our bargain tomorrow."

"Yes, ma'am," he nodded with all the adorably sincerity of a five-year-old. Looking over at the woman laid up in a convalescent chair, he added "Good evening, Lady."

"Good night, then, Mr. Reynolds."

With a final nod, he turned off and ran back towards the ranch hands that were standing some yards away. The men gave them a nod as well before turning back towards the large ranch house in the distance. The two women watched him until they were out of sight.

"He's a scamp, alright, just like his mother said."

"He's a smart one," Seras commented. "His mother is also right that someone should see to his education."

"So you are going to?"

"Can you think of a better tutor?"

The blonde woman shook her head. "You have miles more patience than anyone else I've ever met."

"I learned it from my husband."

"From _Alucard_?"

"From dealing with him for so long."

The two chuckled softly before passing into a companionable silence. The vampire's eyes never left the spot where the boy and his companions had disappeared out of view and the woman knew that she was still watching them with her supernatural sight. Seras' entire posture seemed a trifle tense, as if laden with a sort of passive disease.

"There is something about him, isn't there? More than just that he is a smart boy on this planet you've come to love?"

"Yes."

"Care to share?"

"Not sure if I could explain it to anyone else," the vampire mused, finally tearing her eyes away and looking at her companion. "He's appeared in a few of my dreams. Once before we got here, a brief glimpse of something. More now that we are here. He would probably be just fine without any proper schooling or anything that I or his mother could offer him but…I'd like to help."

"You do love kids." Looking down at her frail and ever weakening hands, the mortal woman looked up at the vampire that was practically her mother. "I'm sorry. There won't be any chance for you to watch a child grow once I'm gone. You'll have your secret to keep."

Seras knelt and grasped her hand. "I watched more children being born and then watched them die than any mother should, even if they weren't my own. Don't you dare start feeling guilty for something beyond your control. You made your life the best that you could. That is all that is important."

Slowly, she nodded, tears shining in her eyes, and the two passed once more into silence before, finally, she wondered aloud.

"Do you think you like it so much because its called Shadow?"

"May be, may be."

oooo

"You are such a sweet girl to help me out like this, Miss Seras."

"No problem at all, Ms. Reynolds."

"Please, call me Ann," the seemingly older woman proclaimed, panting slightly as they moved the heavy bales of hay. "I wasn't ever one to go by my last name, you understand. And you are plenty old enough to make me feel ancient by being ma'am'd and all."

Seras laughed. "Yes, I think I can understand that."

"Yeah," Ann agreed slowly, "I think you might."

They continued working for a few minutes more before the woman called it quits and sat heavily on one of the fences that pinned in the smaller livestock. Her light eyes looked at her companion with a measure of clever intelligence for a long while before nodding to herself as if she had made a decision.

"You know, Miss Seras, despite all your young looks, sometimes I think you are older than your friend. And its not just the way she seems to always look to you for advice, which would be strange in an older woman no matter how much respect she may have for a person. There is just something about you that tells me that you ain't exactly what you seem."

The vampire smiled softly before crinkling her eyes and letting some of her humor break through.

"I can't say that you are wrong but to tell you that you are right might put you in a bit of trouble, Ann. I like you too much for that."

Nodding, the rancher brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. "I can appreciate that. But don't you worry. We all have our secrets and I've never been the sort to nose into business that ain't mine But you are around my boy an awful lot for me not to question you a little, even if you are helping him out more than a bit."

Seras leaned against one of the structural posts and considered the woman before her. She had come to respect the ranch born woman who had taken up the reigns from her daddy after he had died from one of the reaching sicknesses. That same woman had marched on like a regular soldier when the government man who had come to investigate the sickness had left again and she four months along. She was a strong woman and ran her ranch and did her business and took care of her people as if they were her own flesh and blood.

Even more, when two strange woman had parked not far off her ranch, she had calmly invited them in for some sweet iced tea and homemade apple pie with a smile. When the strange women decided not to go off again and had instead stuck around for a couple months, she continued to give them the hospitality of a neighbor and a friend.

She was a good, honest woman in a pure and simple way. Seras loved her.

"You know, you may not believe this, Miss Ann, but I myself am a mother. I have a little boy, just like you."

"You did seem to have an awful lot of patience for my Mal," Ann commented with a grin.

"I think your Malcolm is going to be a fine boy one day. I would like the opportunity to help him along that way, if you don't mind."

The woman looked at her long and hard before giving her a nod and a smile that became wet with unshed tears.

"I always wanted to see him get some proper schoolin'. You don't see much of it out here and there ain't much call for it either." Her brunette hair fell into her face as she looked down at the calluses on her hands. "This weren't the life I had hoped to live, ya see. Not the life my Daddy would have wanted for me either iffen he hadn't got sick. He said I had too much of the smarts in me."

She looked up, wistful as she met the blue eyes of the blonde woman.

"My Mal is a fair smarter than I'll ever be. I'd like to see him get some schoolin'. Mahaps then if he wants to a live a life different than this old ranch he'll be able to."

Seras moved without really thinking, crossing the distance to reach up and cup the tired woman's face in her hands. Despite the fact that Ann Reynolds was a fair bit taller than she was, she still managed to look down at her with all the love and compassion that a mother a dozen times over grew.

"I promise you, little Ann, if you let me, I'll take care of you and your boy. I can't explain how I'm able to manage but if you trust me, you will only ever need ask and I will see that you get it."

"Thank you."

oooo

_"Mind your lessons, Malcolm, or I'll stop teaching you."_

_ "You are too nice for that," the blue eyed boy argued with a mischievous grin._

_ "Maybe, maybe not. But your mother will be more than a little put out if you give up your chance at a fine education from an ancient old lady."_

_ "Are you that old then?"_

_ "Terribly."_

_ "That mean you are going to go off and die the way my grandfather did?"_

_ "No, Malcolm Reynolds, I'm going to stick around long after you want me to."_

_ "Good. I don't like people leavin'."_

oooo

She taught him what she could between his daily chores and her responsibilities. He was a bright child and learned quickly, remembering more than most people born to that sort of life would have bothered. He loved to read and without a care, she handed over her omnibook with all of her favorite titles, from the ancients of Shakespeare and Dickens to the poetry of the classics of Sappho and Byron and even some of the more modern authors like the Lady Kyra and Gen. Macleod. It was taken from her hands faster than a breath and she laughed at the way he clutched it jealously to his chest.

For all his occasional arguments, he sought her out as frequently as he could and she was pleased to see his keen intelligence put through the paces. She gave him his book smarts as well as tips on life, fighting and society. He was an apt pupil and a great distraction.

One she needed.

Everyday, Lady Hellsing grew sicker. Though the fresh air of an agricultural planet helped miles more than the processed air of the Core, time was an enemy no one could stop. She grew thin and weak, her mind often wandering farther into its own depths than she could shake out of on her own. She stopped being able to walk properly on her own and then at all. Even when, at last, Seras suggested they make their way back to the Core and to the hospitals there, she refused.

"You are right. It feels like home."

And so, she sat there with her vampire servant and the boy and went over lessons and joked when she could. She fought hard for merriness and joy but even that began to wear thin as the skin that held up the corners of that smile grew frail and thin.

Then, one day, she asked Seras to help her walk. All her weight held in the strong arms of the vampire, she made her way out with the boy in tow and the three walked a good long distance on the green earth and under the blue sky. And then she tripped and then she fell, collapsing bonelessly to the ground, eyes closed and breath weak.

The boy screamed before Seras quieted him with a soft touch and he grew calm, eyes wide and full of tears. He recognized, she knew, in that strange way that children had, that this was something more sinister than a faint. After a moment he looked up at her and said that he would go fetch help, go find someone to bring her home. But Seras shook her head and tenderly picked up the last Master she would ever have.

"Someday, little Mal, you will understand. Someday you will be the one who has to pick up those who mean the most to you and give them the one thing they need most: someone to carry them home."

oooo

_ "Miss Vicky – "_

_ "Miss Seras, Malcolm. Victoria is my last name."_

_ "Whatever, I have a question."_

_ "Yes?"_

_ "Why does mama hate the Alliance so much?"_

_ "Because your mother thinks that people should be left alone to live their own lives and the Alliance isn't too fond of that idea."_

_ "Do you hate them then?"_

_ "I can't say."_

_ "What can you say then?" _

_ "I can say that you need to find that belief for yourself, little Mal. You are your own person with all your own rights to do as you want. Even if your mother hates it, you have the right to grow up and love the Alliance the same as you have the right to grow up and hate it. The only thing that is important is to find your loyalty and hold to it."_

_ "Can I just be loyal to my family then?"_

_ "That is the best sort."_

oooo

"Miss Vicky?"

Seras turned her eyes away from the stone in her hand and down at the boy that had come to stand beside her. He looked cautious, almost afraid, but still opened his mouth to ask his question.

"Is she gone now, Miss Vicky?"

"Yes, Malcolm, she is."

"I'm sorry. She was a very nice lady."

"Yes, she was."

"Have you come back to stay here then?"

His eyes were wide with hope and it broke her heart as she shook her head no.

"I'm sorry, little Mal. I have a job that I have to do and a family that I have to take care of. But, don't you worry. I'll look out for you. You may not see it but I will."

He looked at her for a long time before nodding.

"What's that?"

She looked back at the stone before crouching down to place it on the ground. The ground curved around it and allowed itself to be marked. It was as close as she could find to the spot where the Last Hellsing had fallen and though her body lay in the ground next to her father on that empty estate in Londinium, her spirit had laid down here.

"It's a very important marker, Malcolm Reynolds. To remind us of how great a lady she was."

"Oh. Grandfather has one of those."

"I imagine he does. Do you think you can look after this and make sure that it stays safe?"

"Yes, ma'am. I will check on it whenever I can."

"Thank you."

He looked down at it for a long moment before looking up at her with a sad smile.

"God will take care of her, you know. He'll take good care of Lady Serenity."

"Yes, little Mal, I think he will."

* * *

AN: This chapter had a pretty well defined idea and what I wanted to happen in it when I set out but very little pretense of a medium. And then inspiration struck and you got this. It is sort of odd and disjointed and frequently doesn't make a cohesive idea but, really, its supposed to be like that. I had originally intended for a bit more humor (as well as a quicker write) but it didn't pan out and some of the original inspiration died away when the week went to chaos.

Hopefully, though, you enjoyed it all the same. I hope to get the next chapter out fairly quickly as well. I've been working on some parts of it so much it has infected my dreams .

Til next time!

PS. In case you didn't notice, this is the foreshadowing chapter. Care to take a guess on what foreshadows what?


	5. Uprising

Disclaimer: I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)

Dedication: To Angel Reaper and Light1 for reading my random bits of story and fanfiction that I've been posting on my LiveJournal and for Metropolis Kid who helped me get my butt back in gear (look! By Easter as per request!)

Note: My most abject apologies. That pesky world outside got between me and my writing desk. Classes were bad enough but with the new job that I got shortly after I posted the last chapter, I had less time at home and no time at work to write. Hopefully, you will be able to forgive me for the long delay. I rather hope that there will not be another one like it (especially since the next chapter should be shorter).

If it is any consolation, this chapter is extremely long (longer than a few of the other chapters combined actually) and has a lot of time progression.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed since the last chapter and those who liked it enough to ask if I was continuing. You are the most awesome.

* * *

Uprising

_Interchanging mind control, come let the  
Revolution take its toll, if you could_

Flick a switch and open your third eye, you'd see that  
We should never be afraid to die, so come on

oooo

She was lost. He was lost, too, more listless than she, but, like most men, he would never admit it. Or perhaps that was her imagination. He had been alive for close to five hundred years before his eventual binding. She still only had a vague concept of what filled all those years – he kept his secrets well – but that had been more than enough time to create a self that was entirely separate from the life he led at Hellsing.

What did she have?

She had died at nineteen. Whatever maturity and self awareness she had earned before that fateful night had been stripped away under the guidance of Integra, Walter and, of course, Alucard. To try and claim a life before Hellsing would be like someone claiming to have live in another country simply by being born abroad: technically true but only to the simple minded.

Her entire existence had been with Hellsing as guardian and Executioner.

What was she now?

oooo

"You are looking more and more the Companion every day."

"Oh? So, do you think I'm ready to start contracting myself out to clients then?"

"Only if you want to be responsible for serial homicide," he growled.

She chuckled softly as she set the dulcimer down with the rest of the classroom use instruments. He was right to say that she had a grace and sense of consciousness that was now mostly only associated with the Companion Guild. What she lacked was the sincere expression as her was presently more wry and sarcastic.

"Some would say that is a trifle on the side of being a double standard." She made her way over to where he stood in the doorway. "You have been taking clients for years."

"It's different."

"Because I trust you?"

His eyes narrowed. "Because you are far too nice and would allow things I wouldn't." His eyes were piercing, almost accusatory, before he relaxed slightly and shrugged. "Besides, men will always try and take advantage in ways that you wouldn't want."

"I think I am well able to protect myself, Alucard."

"Not without revealing yourself."

"Glad to know you think so well of me," she commented dryly. "Just as well deception isn't really my thing. So, for the moment, I'll cave to your jealousy."

His eyes gleamed in ire once more but before he could speak, one of the younger girls came into view, moving quickly towards the room. She paused at the threshold and bobbed a quick curtsey before stepping hesitantly towards them.

"I'm sorry, mistress," she murmured apologetically. "Eliza forgot her dulcimer and ever since the older girls tripped her and she hurt her leg, it takes her much longer to get around."

"No need to apologize. Thank you for being good enough to bring it to her, Seras smiled, watching as the girl took her friend's instrument and left again with a respectful curtsey.

"There is something in her. She could go far in this world of deception if she let go of that kind heart of hers."

"She's dying."

Alucard looked at her, surprised by her blunt insight. For a moment, neither said anything as she continued to close up the classroom. Then he stepped up behind her, close enough to make her nerves tingle and she shivered.

"When will you tell me your dreams, police girl? When will you tell me what you suffer in silence?"

There was a beat of quiet, of absolute stillness as she stood in the light of his gaze, before she stiffened and stepped away from him.

"When you learn to listen."

oooo

"You know, you are a little old to be a student. I only teach the younger male children self-defense. And you are hopefully not here to contract with me because no matter how old you are, I would be very surprised if you could win a fight against my husband."

"The term isn't so much 'win'," Nikolai commented as he bent over to help her rearrange the pillows on the floor, "its 'not lose.' And since his definition of winning a fight means it ending in his opponent's death, I can boast that I am really rather good at not dying."

Seras laughed as she straightened and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "So you are after my virtue after all."

"Of all the people I have ever met, I Can say that you most of all will never be deprived of your virtue."

She smiled at touch of genuine affection before rising to stand.

"You are entirely too charming for the sanctity of my marriage, you know."

"One day, I'll take you at your word and put my best efforts into stealing you away."

"In the meantime," she laughed, settling down on her stool, "why _are_ you here?"

"There is something strange going on in the legislative branch of Parliament."

"Isn't there always something strange going on in Congress?"

His lips quirked for a moment before his expression turned furtive. "Not everything passes by my desk nor even the committees that I'm on. There cabinet can sometimes be very exclusive."

"And something has gotten past you?" she quizzed wonderingly. "Something wrong?"

He nodded briefly before stilling in his action and shrugging. "I'm honestly not sure. But things have been strangely quiet in some quarters. Too quiet by far. On a large scale."

"And so what are you not so pointedly getting at? Some sort of spy work?"

The ancient vampire rolled his eyes but gave a half shrug. "You have guaranteed access to the halls of Congress. You could tell them that you want to work with the law makers and the people and make a difference in general life. Some sort of political nonsense."

"Which you are so good at," she muttered distractedly.

He peered at her for a moment, eyes narrowing at her comment and distinct lack of warmth at the idea.

"Come now, Seras. This is not the life for you. You are a willing captive in this glittery cage?" He smiled, blue eyes glimmering as he looked at her. "You need this as much as the people need competent eyes and ears in the places where it matters."

She smiled a little, sadly, before her eyes grew troubled again. "It would mean moving to Osiris and going wherever the people called. It would mean leaving Alucard again."

"So much the better," Nikolai exclaimed with unabashed delight at the prospect.

"I…I'll let you know."

"Good girl."

oooo

"What is it about blondes with blue eyes that are so convincing that they so easily manage to convince you to go?" Alucard queried as he watched her pack her belongings.

She paused in her actions long enough to stare at a pair of black high-heeled shoes, well-worn from her time stalking through the executive offices.

"I hate these shoes so much."

"You could wear flats," he suggested logically.

"And have those dirty old men stare down whatever game in my neckline they can find? No thank you."

"Then," he proposed leadingly, "you could always stay here and continue on as an instructor. They all rather like you."

"I already promised Nikolai, Alucard. It will probably only be for a few months. You could come with me, even," she suggested hopefully, almost shyly.

"What is it about this fellow that he so easily wins you to his side, so easily persuades you?"

She shrugged, tossing her shoes into the open luggage and closing the casing. "It wasn't so easy. I don't like leaving. You know this."

"So what is it?"

She stared down at the lid for a moment, hands still, posture thoughtful. A second or two passed by before she peered over her shoulder at him.

"He needs me. Can you say the same?"

He looked at her in complete silence, eyes refusing to give way to any truth as she turned once more to her luggage and snapped the lock into place.

"What I thought."

oooo

"We can't begin to explain to you how excited we are to have you here with us, my lady. Our members elected to the cabinet have been nothing but praising of your actions and eternally grateful for the advice you have been able to give them."

"I am always glad to be of service," the blonde woman replied with a smile.

"And of course, there are so many more of us here. We can only hope that you will have the time and of course energy to help us! It would probably be best for you to review the committees and see where you think your expertise would be best used. I could also make some suggestions. As Speaker, I have a better idea of which seem to be floundering in their duties."

"I would appreciate that," she allowed. If the tone of her voice seemed a touch dry, her companion did not seem to notice as he pulled up a list on his viewer.

"We seem to be having the most trouble in these groups, especially Border Planet Relations (BPR) and Trade Law Commission (TLC). There are others of course such as the Advanced Education Initiative (AEI) and Planned Terraforming Project (PTP). But of course we have Lady Shiara for that last one. Such a lovely girl."

"I always thought so."

"Indeed, you must. Now, do you have any ideas where you might like to start?"

The woman looked down at the list as the seemingly older gentleman stared down at her with jubilant expectation. She perused the names for some few minutes before straightening and giving a polite smile.

"I believe I would like to start with the Border Planet Relations."

"Excellent choice, excellent choice."

oooo

_Seras,_

_ Thank you for those sweets you sent out from Osiris. They boys around here liked them mightily and I have to say the same. Those maps you sent over for my boy were real fine too. He keeps peering at them whenever he gets the chance. I think he has ideas of travelling one day. Good for him if he does. Thanks again for your offer to help but we get by. I'll let you know if we have any real emergency._

_ -Ann_

_PS. Those idiots in suits treating you okay? They going to send you this way anytime soon?_

oooo

"Did you receive my full report along with suggested courses of actions that I sent to you last night? It took some time to negotiate a safe landing due to a short circuit in my landing gear so I was unable to make our meeting last night."

"No need to apologize, my lady," an older gentleman assured her as he smiled from his position behind a great mahogany desk. The wood from his desk was specifically cultivated from the seeds brought out from Earth-That-Was and was harvested and crafted into the furniture on one of the border moons she had just returned from. "I saw it and have submitted it to my assistant for review. She is very talented with paring down to the key points and details."

She had left out the bit about the wood in her official report. She was sure he knew exactly where it came from. He had mentioned once that he wanted to furnish the entire office with the stuff. Strangely, the news about the plague riding rough over the workers seemed to slip his mind often enough.

"So I understand," she responded politely. "Has any work been made on any of my submitted suggested courses of action?"

"Indeed, the TLC has taken a liking to some of your ideas, especially the idea of standardization of manufacturing. I'm sure it will speed through the worlds. Too bad some of those Border planets are so argumentative about things like that. We shall have to see about applying pressure for compliance."

Regret filtered through her eyes momentarily before she nodded.

"I imagine I'll be off to Greenleaf in a week or so."

"My lady, we never envisioned you doing the dirty work, you must know. We sought your guidance, not your labor," he exclaimed jovially.

"I can only give advice on things I have seen. I will stop when I have seen enough."

"Wise words indeed."

Oooo

"It is so nice to see the loveliness of your face in person rather than through waves and the like. Not that I am at all objecting, far from it, but to what do I owe the pleasure of your so unexpected company?"

Seras grinned at him briefly, happy to see him as well despite the somewhat serious nature of her visit. Her delight could have something to do with the way he was staring at her legs below the short work shorts that she had worn instead of opting to change into more appropriate attire. There was always something nice about flattering male attention, especially when it didn't cross the line.

"I was in the area and I thought I would give you a better idea of what I've been seeing."

He looked away from her legs and met her eyes only to find her looking at him reproachfully. Unashamed, he grinned at her and crossed his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair.

"Tell me the news then, draculina."

"I'm going to assume that unlike those imbeciles, you actually read the reports I give on those moons and the outer planets," she began with a sigh as she sank into the chair.

"Assume away."

"What I've been afraid to tell you through waves is that there is something stranger going on, as you expected."

He frowned, dropping his hands, he leaned towards her. "What is it?"

"I can't say. They seem to be extremely…cautious around me. Some of them seek my advice or ask for help on certain manners and then actually listen, but for the most part they treat me like a guest. An uninvited guest. They are trying desperately to hide certain things but I am at a loss to see what."

He tapped his fingers on the desk for a moment before sighing.

"Would it be asking too much for you to stay on awhile longer? See if you can find out more?"

She grinned again. "I had already planned on it, actually. There is a lot going on and I know that there are things on those border planets and the outer rim that someone should see to. They don't seem to have any plan to look into it themselves so I'm taking it upon myself. I'm also going to see if I can get Michael and Shiara to help me on some of it too."

"You sound rather determined, Seras. Very attractive," he smiled, wiggling his eyebrows.

Laughing, she stood up again. "On that note, I think it is time to go see my husband before he forgets about me completely.

"I doubt anyone ever could."

oooo

"A few months."

For a moment, as Seras lay there amongst the soft cushiony pillows that crowned the extravagant bed the Companion House had allowed her husband, she considered getting up. The thought briefly passed and she then momentarily considered even sitting up. However, for once, the will to move had completely left her. She couldn't even get up the energy to reply.

"Mmmnn."

"Eloquent," he commented dryly and she could _feel_ his censure as he looked down at her.

The feeling of being stared at continued until at last she opened one eye and peered up at him tiredly.

"A few months."

"You sound like a little kid, Alucard," she murmured with a yawn.

"It is childish now for a man to find the extended absence of his wife troubling? Especially when she says that she is going to be gone a few months and then disappears for more than a year?"

She couldn't help but smile at his petulant tone. He had never been the sort to cling or even regularly show affection. She knew his feelings and didn't need to be told over and over, especially not after so very, very long. But, she would be lying if she said she didn't like these small moments that proved that he missed her when she was away.

"I'm here now aren't I?" She finally roused enough energy to sit up just enough to give her the length needed to grab his wrist. "I don't know about you, but since it has been awhile since I've last seen you, I would much rather be doing something aside of argue."

He narrowed his eyes at her and she knew that she had only postponed the lecture he was dead set on giving her. Still, he didn't fight her when she pulled him into bed with her. In fact he seemed determined to let her know how much he resented her absence in a completely spectacular way.

oooo

"You are leaving again?"

His voice was colder than ice, closer to the absolute chill to the void of space. He was more than angry with her at this point and beyond furious. She stared at him, understanding his anger, but not its depth. Still, she would not budge.

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"I don't know, honestly. As long as it takes. I'm actually going to purchase a residence there. I will try and come back to visit as often as I can."

He laughed coldly, meanly. "The humans at least usually divorce their spouses before leaving them. But then our marriage was barely a technicality, so I imagine that I have no right to complain when you abandon it."

For a moment, she was startled at his words. Then she became angry as well.

"Are you questioning my loyalty?"

"Loyalty? No. We all know that you are as loyal as the next bitch. You even let your master chain you down at the slightest request. Who would ever doubt your loyalty?"

She had never been the dignified sort, but in that moment she scraped together every scrap of the emulated concept and stood up from where she had been lying naked on the bed beside him. She had taken the sheet with her and he watched in stony silence as she wrapped it around her, covering what she could. One step and then another and then she turned to look down at him where he lay propped up against the headboard.

"In all these years, _Master_, I knew from the very beginning that you were a monster. I never cared. From almost that first moment, I loved you. I followed you from my most cherished beliefs about my own soul and life and joined you in your world. I made the _choice_ to follow you even when there was hardly a choice to make. I made the _choice_ to give my allegiance to Integra and her family. I followed them and between their orders and your desires, I have spent all but the entirety of my existence doing as others wished."

She grabbed the hanging sheet in her hand and swept it around her legs like the train of an elegant gown as she strode to stand next to where he still lay, staring at her with hard eyes. She stopped when she was able to look down at him from her minimal vantage point.

"In all that time, you had my unconditional trust. While I might have had my doubts at any moment or the next, I believed in you and trusted in your words and actions. And now for the first time in more than _five hundred years_ I have decided that there is something that _I_ want to do, something that _I_ want to commit_ my_ existence to, and all you have is scorn for my actions."

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

"No, I don't want to hear it! I asked you to come with me! In the past year, I _begged_ you to come see me where I was and to come see what I had found. But you wouldn't. I tried _so very_ hard to get you to experience what I had with me, but you refused. And now that you see that I won't give it up, you treat me like some backstabbing bitch you found in the gutter."

She looked away from him, chin still stubbornly high. After a second passed, she turned away from him and strode purposefully towards the locked door that only hours ago had been the promise of sanctuary. She unlocked it slowly and rested her hand on the knob before looking at him again.

"I always knew you were a monster, Alucard. Now I know you are a bastard too." She smiled tiredly, willfully meeting his blazing glare. "I'm leaving. If you care, you can come after me. If you don't, don't. Hell, if you want to send me the plebian divorce papers…fine. Just decide if you want a wife, a Companion or a fucking pet."

She opened the door and began to walk through before stopping and throwing one last comment over her shoulder.

"And you can't abandon what was apparently never there."

The door closed behind her with a sharp snap.

oooo

He didn't often go to the Hellsing mansion now that Lady Serenity was dead and buried. Nor had he gone with particular frequency before that. It had been many years since he had spent significant amounts of time there, since the last Lord Hellsing lived. Despite that he had spent more time away from the planet that had given him birth than he had lived there, the ending place of the Hellsing family was never a place of comfort to him. It never spoke as home.

So it was quite inexplicable to him why he suddenly felt the need to go there.

Shiara had been unable to join him, busy as she was with the last bit of her latest project. He had actually been about to make his way to the workshop on Hera to fine tune the new design plans when the desire struck him. He could never claim to be psychic like his mother was (nor, honestly, did he want to be) but there were times when he simply _knew_ he had to do something.

The place was strangely quiet. He knew it shouldn't have surprised him, but it somehow did. The doors were closed too tightly and the air was ever so slightly old. Strangely absent of dust, the house stood like a mausoleum in a moment put on pause. The setting sun gave little natural light as the world slipped into twilight and he felt strangely uncomfortable being all alone in the expansive building for what may well have been the first time.

Except, something told him he wasn't.

His unconsciously predetermined steps took him towards the room where his parents had slept. As he neared it, he heard some soft sound seeping through the halls of stone and wood. His hearing was perfect and his memory precise, but he couldn't quite put a name to the sound he heard, even as it got progressively louder. Its source was the same as his destination and he shadowed in the open doorway, peering inside at something strange indeed.

He had never seen his mother cry before.

The thought struck him and immediately he cast it aside as impossible. He had some vague memories of tears streaking down her cheeks, he knew, but every echo of those moments sounded with happy times. She had shed tears in joy and laughter. The more he thought, the more he connected the idea with the moments of sorrow and sadness but always mixed with a tinge of hope or happiness. Her emotions were very complicated, layered with years of memories and understanding that he did not have.

But here she was, sobbing. Her body was racking with the purity of a single emotion: grief. It took his breath away, or the motion of his body at least. He was shocked and horrified and so utterly amazed that his mind was swept clean of all intelligence and reason as he stood there and stared at her.

It was funny, his mind reasoned unreasonably as he stood there. For his entire life, she had been unchanging. Her face was the same and her figure. Physically no different from shortly after his birth, she had been a moment in time continuing forever, the sort of mother that any human could only wish for. She would never grow old and infirm and he would never have to watch her die. She even had always had that careful way of looking at him where, no matter how angry she might have been at him, her eyes lit up with this great pride and love that purely rested on the fact of his existence. To him she was the perfect embodiment of the Mother Immortal.

Yet, as he looked at her, he found himself wondering if she had really always been that young. Laying there on her side, curled up against the pain and eyes screwed shut to block out the world, she looked impossibly young. How had he ever been able to look at her and not see the youth in her features? How had he so entirely missed the vulnerability that she was screaming out in that moment?

Finally, he shuddered to a start and he moved into the room. Quietly, he knelt on the ground beside where she lay on the bed and reached out to softly clasp her hand. Her eyes flew open, shock and upset bright on her features before recognition settled in. It broke his heart even more than the sight of her soul deep sobs to see her try and put up a brave and nonchalant face to show him. She struggled so hard to give him that look that mothers give, that expression that assures that everything is okay. He didn't let her.

"Mommy," he whispered, using a name he had stupidly cast aside when he felt too old to use it. "Mommy, it's alright. I'm here."

She broke and he broke with her, watching her face deteriorate into pain and anguish as she reached for him like a child. Quietly, he moved himself to sit on the bed and pulled her into his lap, rocking her back and forth in his arms like she had so often done for him.

"I'm here."

oooo

"It's been a long time since I've seen you with short hair."

She smiled crookedly as she brushed her fingers along the tips of her newly shortened hair. "Since I haven't had short hair since significantly before I met you, I am tempted to call you a stalker, Nikolai."

He grinned at her unapologetically but before long the expression began to melt into something more concerned. She pretended to ignore it as the memory of Michael's face and the way it looked in the moments after she had used her dagger to unceremoniously chop her hair to the length it had been once a very long time ago. It hadn't lost its comical shock until she quietly put the tied coil of her locks on Serenity's grave. Then…

The humor fading from her mind, she looked at him again, resigned to see the look of worry plastered over his pale features.

"Seras, what happened?"

She gave him an inexcusably fake smile. "Nothing's wrong."

"Then why," he asked with a frown as he stood to walk around his desk and loom over her, "are you back in my office again only three days after you left? Why have you suddenly decided to cut your hair – which you once told me you kept long in memory of your beloved friend – without showing any signs of remorse? Why is it that I can tell from the pure exhaustion that is radiating in waves from your entire being that you have been crying?"

She stiffened, clenching the arms of the chair tightly before sighing and letting them go. She finally looked up at him and gave him a sad, shaking smile. He wavered in his overbearing attitude and crouched beside her, taking her hand gently in his.

"Seras, please, what happened?'

"It might be over this time," she murmured softly. "We've never fought like that before, we've barely even fought! But I was just so…angry." Her smile broke and she could fear the tears in her eyes, cursing them, silently as she tried to speak evenly. "Could all of it really be gone? What was it in the first place?"

Her voice trailed off and she could feel his quiet sympathy and horror on her behalf.

"So…what you are telling me," he began quietly, moving his head a bit until he caught her eye, "is that you have finally left your husband and are finally, _finally_ going to make me amazingly happy by running away with me? Have I got that right?"

For a moment, she was shocked until a startled laugh broke out of her. The laugh felt so good that for a moment, she really did completely adore him and might almost have agreed to his outlandish idea.

"I'll take that for a no," he grinned, cupping her cheek with a soft smile before straightening again. "You've really come to tell me that you are going back to work and are going to uncover whatever fiendish plots the evil politicians have up their sleeves now."

"And," she grinned, "I have backup."

"Well, I would have preferred the first choice, but I will take what I can get."

oooo

_Seras,_

_ I'm sorry to hear about your fellow. I never had much use for them myself so I have no womanly words of wisdom for you. I am glad to hear that you are still fighting on our side, though. It is mighty fine to know that someone with some sense is taking the time to see what is going on in this Verse of ours. _

_ I'll be sure to let you know if we need anything, but, you know me. It's hard to ask for anything you can't do yourself. I look forward to seeing you when I can._

_ Take care,_

_ Anne_

_PS. My boy Mal keeps watching those vids you sent over and over. He's actually beginning to talk right pretty I must say. Cracks the rest of us up. I'll have him send a message next time so you can hear it._

oooo

Time passed more quickly in the Black. When there is always the next destination to go to, the next person to meet, the days begin to peel away into weeks and the weeks into months. Face came after face and village after city, each burned in her memory and added to an ever growing montage. Every place added to the picture and it was one Seras did not like.

She was grateful to Michael. She did not know what he knew or what he had said to Shiara, but whatever it was, it was enough. Within a matter of weeks, they had settled their own matters and taken up her mission. The ship became a lively home and echoing laughter was often dying away into space as they shared stories or played games. It was a beloved novelty for her as she realized that she was, for the first time, simply herself as she would definite it. She was no one's servant or executioner. The only will that she needed to bend to was her own. After so many years at long last she was able to be simply a mother and a friend. Just that knowledge alone became a quiet joy that lived inside her heart even while the Verse she explored threatened to break it.

There was almost too much. Each new planet and moon and each city and village told a harsh story. There was neglect and sickness, famine and violence. Some was purely due to the nature of man or the worlds on which they found themselves. She was old enough to know that there would always be those who would hurt rather than help just as there would always be those who would use their strength to defend instead of destroy. It was an eternal balance.

But when those who sought to govern them turned a blind or apathetic eye, then she grew angry. More and more she saw signs of a great bully taking advantage of those who just wanted to live their lives. They stole what they could with only promise of something better left behind.

It was wrong and she would do whatever it took to stop it.

oooo

"It's strange," Shiara murmured irritation obvious in her tone.

The two other people in the room looked up from their own work to glance at her, waiting for more. When nothing came, Michael rolled his eyes and straightened to look more fully at his wife.

"What is strange, Shiara?"

She looked up, eyes distracted, and blinked. For a moment she sat confused before understanding dawned and he had the feeling that she hadn't noticed that she had spoken aloud. She frowned and looked down again before laying the feed paper on the table where they were working. The text continued to flow in neat lines, fading slightly in the light that streamed through the open window. After a moment, she tapped the page and expanded a selection of text.

"Right here it talks about an authorized change to one of the processors on terraforming platform 93. It also lists one for 48 and 23."

"What sort of changes?" Seras asked, not bothering to look at the complex text for a process she had only rudimentary understanding for.

"That's what is strange," Shiara continued with a frown. "I don't know."

Michael began to frown as well. "I thought you were the only one who had the authority to change anything on the platforms.

The redhead shook her head. "No, there are a few others but not many. They are also supposed to notify me whenever there is a change. In fact…." She trailed off, eyes narrowing in thought. "The processors should notify me too, send a data signal. But they haven't."

"Could there be a malfunction?" Seras asked cautiously.

"No, he connects to and calibrates them every week. Which means…."

"Which means," the blonde sighed, "someone is trying very hard to keep this a secret. Can you look though and see if there are any more changes you don't know about?"

Shiara nodded. "All of the records like this are archived in the Department of Terraforming Affairs."

Michael glanced out to the window to the city beyond. On the edge of the horizon, the Congressional building stood out against the vivid blue of the sky.

"Well," he commented dryly. "At least its close by."

"Unfortunately."

oooo

"No, I'm not sure I can say I _do_ understand why I should be giving you a 75% discount on my ships."

Seras looked up at her son, distracted from the bureaucratic paperwork she had been trying to sort through and compile for well over a month. After spending over half a year sorting through what seemed like endless technical reports on terraforming processes, she had hoped to take a break from paperwork. But, it seemed, there was never an end to the stuff.

Sometimes she missed being a soldier.

Still, it meant that she had spent more time planetside than she had in years, since she had been at the Companion Training Academy actually. The thought soured her peace and she sought to regain it by looking at the breezy and open house she had found on Osiris.

"No, I do not believe that as the government you have the right to my product….No matter what purposes they might serve!"

It didn't work too well.

As she listened to her on argue with whoever was on the other end of the line – probably some idiot high in the military department – she found herself missing Shiara. It was at these moments that the two of them would share amused glances and humorous comments. After having her around for so long – and after so long a time – she found herself missing her daughter-in-law's company. Two months had passed since she had left to investigate the results of their search. They had found enough "missing" data to give her some idea of what to look for but to do it she had to go to her private lab at the Terraforming Research and Control Center. There she might be able to find some pattern and see what all the little changes might add up to.

It would be no surprise to any of them if the facts revealed that the Alliance was rigging certain planets to be rich in diamonds and other valuable ores. Michael was almost betting on it and even Shiara admitted that it was theoretically possible.

She heard the communicator power down and looked over to Michael who was clearly more than a little irritated. Her lips quirked a bit as she thought that it was in those moments he looked most like his father. The thought passed as he turned his gaze towards her, the deep blue swimming with conflicting emotions of anger and hesitation.

"So are they about to invade your factory and workshop and run off with all of your new designs and current fleet?"

"Something like that, unless I go and stop them," he sighed tiredly, cradling his face in his hands with an exasperated groan.

"I take it that they don't mean the subsection you have on the docks here on Osiris. That would be harder to explain, wouldn't it?" She smiled wryly, slightly saddened at the lack of surprise she felt at hearing the news of what else the Alliance was trying to get away with.

"Yeah, they are after the workshop on Hera." Michael picked his head up and gave her a look that was half apologetic and half hopeful. "I know you wanted to make for Shadow next week. Do you think you can come with me now? They are in the same system and …."

She gave him an equally apologetic smile. "No, I've got to finish up this paperwork before I go. It'll probably only take me another day or so but I'm sure you can't wait that long."

He shook his head. "Not really, no. When picking a fight with the morons of the military, you have to be quick. If they get there before I do, there won't be any fight to pick. Hell the entire place would probably be empty," he muttered angrily.

"Probably." Seras looked down at the mess of information in front of her, reasoning whether or not she could put it off for a couple weeks. With a sigh, she looked at him, smile lopsided and wry. He met her gaze, eyes clouded with concern, and she reached over to cover his hand. "I'll be alright by myself, Michael. I'm a big girl."

He simply looked at her for another moment before nodding slowly. "If I get done quickly, I'll meet you on Shadow. I want to meet the famous Anne Reynolds."

"She'd like that. And so would I."

oooo

The house echoed more when she was alone. It made absolutely no sense as she was frequently the only one home but had never felt that way before. Still, in the two days following Michael's departure, she felt like there was nothing but a vast emptiness pressing in on her. She tried opening all the windows to invite in the crisp air and quiet sounds of the world outside but she found herself noticing that sterile quality of the atmosphere and the hum of too much science in too little space. Instead of feeling more calm and at home in the house that she normally loved, she found herself missing London and the world she was born into. She knew it was silly, she had almost reached the point where she had spent more time on these worlds than she had there, but homesickness was never exactly rational in the first place.

So instead, she hurried through her paperwork, knowing full well that it was going to be ignored anyway just like all the others had been despite her efforts to give them more information with fewer details in fewer reports. When she was done, she gathered her belongings and left with barely any warning to the Congressmen who had become accustomed to having her more directly at hand. There had been only one place…perhaps two if she was honest with herself…where she felt like she was home and she had been denying herself the pleasure for too long. Michael had been gone for barely 40 hours when his mother set off for Shadow and the Reynolds homestead and ranch. Almost instantly, she regretted it.

In the Black, silence screamed.

At first, the grated hallways and metal walls echoed with remembered laughter and words, scenes replaying themselves in the various rooms as she walked idly through the all but empty ship. Much had happened on the old craft and most was easy to remember and smile. But then, as empty hours crawled slowly past, other thoughts began to creep in.

How long had it been since she had been alone? It was years, more than plural, she remembered vaguely, since before they had fought. Had it really been that long since she had seen him last? Did time pass by that easily? She knew well that her children were trying their best to distract her in those first months but had they really been trying all along? Why hadn't she noticed? Was it obliviousness or was it willful blindness? Had she been living so long in denial?

Soundless words began to fill the silence. The fights came first, so angry and willful and mean. She remembered every harsh word he had said and everyone that she had said back. Had she even tried to see things from his perspective? From those thoughts more pleasant memories began to bloom. The moment he had finally slid her wedding ring onto her finger, where it remained even still, bled into more distant memories. She had been so happy by his side and he had been more than pleased to have her there. She had known from the beginning that he was not the sort to shout his feelings to the world or even whisper them quietly to a single person. She knew and didn't care.

What had changed, she wondered as she lay on the metal grating of the cockpit floor, staring up at the stars beyond the tempered glass. When had his quiet affection and devotion ceased to be enough?

That memory too crept from the infinite emptiness that surrounded her and the ship she hid in. Trust. He didn't trust her, not really. He trusted her to do certain things and to act in certain ways, but it fell short. It was, the darkness reminded her spitefully despite her desire to forget, the trust of a Master to a Servant, of a Teacher to a Student. He had stolen her, courted her, bedded her, created life with her and eventually even married her, but, in all that time, had he ever seen her as an equal? Was she still, after all that time, one step below Integra, one step behind Walter, one place behind Hellsing?

Suddenly, the silent screams of her thoughts were too much.

In moments, she was on her feet and at the consol. With a flip of a switch and a press of a button, the controls came to life and a sarcastic chuckle sounded through the speaker. Instantly, the tension in her faded at the sound and she leaned back into the chair.

"Don't laugh."

"I'm actually impressed. You made it two days without activating anything but the navigation and life support controls. That is a long time to live in silence, Traveler Immortal."

She smiled a little and closed her eyes. "Glad to know I can still impress you."

"I am a bit worried about your mental state if you need me to talk to though. Fantastically designed though I am, a true gift of my creator, talking to a machine is still not a good sign of sanity."

"Glorifying yourself is not exactly sane either," she chuckled.

"You are talking to a machine. I have no sanity."

"I always thought so."

"Now if we were to…."

For the moment, she let the nonsense words fill the silence and the whispers of truth in the Black went ignored for a little longer.

oooo

When she was young, she had heard people say that there was no going home again and had never been able to understand it. As a child, it had engendered a sense of bitterness in her to hear people complain about their lives with their parents after they had grown. She felt, and still did in part, that they should be grateful for the chance to spend those extra moments with them as there were those who did not have that luxury.

After she had joined Hellsing, she had started to let go of that bitterness but still found herself unable to understand the sentiment. She had found such contentment and happiness there that she had felt she had finally come home. How was it that people could not look forward to returning to a place that they had experienced happiness and peace?

It was only when she returned to the Reynolds' homestead that she finally understood. That feeling of peace and contentment - of feeling completely at home - once shattered, would never return. It was obvious even from a distance that things were not right. When she made her final approach to the house, the door opened and Anne stood at the threshold, her smile of welcome not quite able to push away the exhaustion and anger that had transformed her features since they had last met.

"What happened?" Seras asked softly, inviting the woman to vent.

"Oh…everything."

The entire tale unfolded over the worn kitchen table as the two sipped some rough and ready whiskey. Alliance men had come, like always, but they had wanted more. At first, it had only been more without warning, which was hard enough to supply, but then they started coming much more frequently.

"They've taken almost everything we have, Seras," Anne sighed, brushing her hair out of her face. It was greyer than it had been before and the vampire doubted it was all due to age. "We're still mostly alright here, to be honest, but several others ain't. Once them vultures have taken their fill there is almost nothing left to sell locally or for our ownselves."

Seras nodded, digesting the bitter information. "But, that's not all, is it?" she prodded knowingly.

Anne shook her head, putting the whiskey up to her mouth. She took a sip, eyes low over the cup before rest it against her lip and looking up to meet her friend's eyes.

"They are paying us less and charging us more. Price of cattle, according to them, has gone down a quarter on the head while the price of their precious goods has come up a third."

Anger burned hot under Seras' skin and she forced herself to let go of her own glass before she shattered it on accident. She took a breath, steadying herself, and reached out a hand to cover Anne's where it lay on the table.

"I will do what I can."

The ageing woman nodded, shoulders relaxing little, and she turned her hand to squeeze her friend's.

"Thank you."

"IN the meantime," the blonde perked up with a smile, "I'm sure you could use some help around here."

Anne laughed and stood up. "I surely could. My boy is off trying to convince some damn fool idiots to teach him how to fly. Likely to get them all killed. Be more than a touch of a help to have someone else share the work he's left behind."

"I'd love to."

oooo

"One day, Seras, I hope you can bring yourself to explain to me why your boy there looks older than you and you don't look a day older than the day you and Miss Serenity landed just past my patch of dirt."

The vampire turned to her friend with laughing eyes. "I'm fairly sure that you have guessed a good bit on your own, Anne. It would be dangerous for you to know details."

"Figures," the ranchwoman commented with a grin, bumping shoulders with her companion. "Don't wait so long to come back for a visit."  
"I won't, I promise."

Seras reached out and embraced her friend tightly before letting go. "Tell Mal that Miss Vicky said hi."

"He'll be sorry he missed you but I'll let him know. If he hasn't blown himself up."

Laughter was the only response and the two women waved goodbye before turning to walk their separate directions. Along the path back to her ship, Michael joined his mother and smiled.

"I have to say I rather like her."

Nodding, Seras hmm'ed an agreement but didn't say anything. A few moments passed in silence before he tried again.

"Is her son much like her?"

"A good bit," she allowed succinctly.

They continued walking, Michael at a loss to understand what was wrong with his mother. After a few minutes, they reached the open hatch to her ship and, at last, she turned to look up at him.

"Michael, I think it is time that I spend some time on my own. I am grateful for all the help you and Shiara have given me, especially after…but I need to sort some things out. I love you both but it is best that I do things by myself for a little while."

Her son nodded slowly, his knowledge of his mother good enough to know that she was not spurning his company so much as craving solitude. Still, he was worried. If he thought that she was going to go back with his father or spend time relaxing or doing something that she loved, he wouldn't be at all bothered. Something in her eyes, though, told him that she was making plans that had nothing to do with happy reunions or peaceful days.

"Just…let me know if you need me. I'm always here for you."

She smiled, genuine affection shining from her features. "I know." She cupped his hand in her cheek and brought his face down to the same level as her own. She pressed a kiss on his forehead before patting his face. "Go spend some good quality time alone with your gorgeous wife."

"And her obnoxious AI."

"No, that I have with me. I stole it fair and square and will only give it back when I'm done."

Laughing he sketched a shallow bow. "You have my eternal gratitude."

"Be careful. I may get sick of him quickly."

"Then I will run away before you can change your mind."

"Good idea," she winked.

oooo

The tied length of her chopped hair was gone.

It was foolish to think it was still there after so long, still, it had surprised her to find it missing. Her interview with Nikolai had left her feeling restless. He had taken the news of her probably abdication well. Judging from the look in his eye, she could guess that he had almost expected her to eventually be so disgusted with the Alliance she'd be forced to leave. She had been honest enough to tell him that she would probably even be counteractive to their desires and he had gone so far to warn her against being rash.

_"There are few things more helpful than a well-placed spy, Seras. You would do well to take advantage of how well placed you are in their government."_

She hadn't said anything but subterfuge had never been her thing. She had grown used to the necessity of lying to those around her and had learned to do it very well, but she still found it distasteful. If she was going to do anything, she would stand up and do it proudly. If they wanted sneaky backhanded methods…well, she wasn't their girl.

To herself, she admitted that it was more than just telling Nikolai her news in person that drew her back to Londinium. After leaving the shattered images of home on Shadow, she had felt the need to return to the ever constant walls of Hellsing. Time seemed to stand still there if nowhere else and it was a comforting, if not happy, thought. If nothing else, there was always somewhere to return to, somewhere to call home.

Her mind was chaotic and out of time as she passed through the empty echoing halls. It trailed behind her even as she opened the door to her bedroom and began to undress. It was so far behind, in fact, that she had stripped down to her undergarments had was opening the doors to the wardrobe across the room to find something to sleep in before she noticed that she wasn't alone in the room. She stilled, hands clenching on the delicate knobs of the doors, before slowly turning her face to allow her gaze to find the tall figure leaning against the adjacent wall.

It was strange to suddenly realize how little time changed him. There had only been one time before when she had been without his company for any serious length of time but the circumstances of their reunion had prevented her from considering his features. This time, it was startling to have him match so perfectly to her memory. Even the dangerously sharp gleam to his eyes was identical to the last time she had seen him.

His lips quirked up at the corners as she looked at him, dumbfounded, and his gaze wandered down over her, reminding her of her state of undress. Refusing to feel disturbed by his presence, she squared her shoulders and leveled her gaze at him. She refused to budge, despite finding a traitorous blossoming of joy in her heart at seeing him again after years apart.

Laughing low in his throat, he pushed away from the wall and approached her in that fantastically slow way he had, his trademark way of approaching prey. She refused to back down, raising her chin and meeting his blazing gaze. Still she knew that it was inevitable, they both did. He would capture her and, even if she struggled, bend her to his will. In everything else, she could stand tall and fight. In anything else, she could deny him.

In this, she did not want to.

oooo

"Don't take it! You can't take it from me!"

"Your misbegotten gains are forfeit. You are lucky that I am being lenient enough not to throw you into prison. Now shut up and go home before I change my mind."

The lawman shoved the local away from him causing the older man to fall into the dust and dirt. He watched, face pale with loss, as the office walked away before his gaze turned to his now empty hands. How long he stared at them, he wasn't sure, but he was only shaken from his stupor by a hand that trust itself into view. Following the line of arm, he raised his gaze to its owner and found a petite blonde woman smiling down at him. He stared at her a moment before looking down to her hand once more. Slowly, he put his hand in hers and allowed her to help him to his feet.

"Are you alright, grandpa?"

He looked at her, speechless for an answer. She took his silence as answer enough though and placed a kind hand on his shoulder.

"What did they take?"

"Money. The last of the money. My grandson gave it to me last week and now they are saying that he stole it from someone. But my boy would never do that. He's a good lad!"

She smiled at him again, squeezing his shoulder lightly. "I believe you. I know a few more people who will believe you two. I was just about to go see them. Why don't you join me? We are always looking for more people to join our…cause."

His eyes widened and he grew steadier. After a moment, he grew calm and his eyes looked her over again.

"Nice coat."

She grinned, running her hands over the ankle length brown leather duster. "I started wearing it awhile back when I had some things to do on the Border worlds and outer planets. The rest of the group took a shine to it."

He nodded, a smile growing on his face, and stood taller. Back straightening with resolution, he patted her shoulder.

"You know, I might have just taken a fancy to it my ownself. You kno where I can get one?"

"I just might if you come with me."

He grinned and the two walked down the street together, scene of loss and desolation left behind in the dirt.

oooo

"Did you know that mom has been fermenting rebellion on the outer planets and border moons?"

Shiara glanced up from her notes and found Michael grinning at her. She arched a brow at him and gave a shrug.

"Not surprising."

He frowned, miffed that his bit of "shocking" news had had so little effect. With a small huff, he brought his cup to his lip and took a sip.

"Did you know that your parents have started meeting on a fairly regular basis to shag?"

She barely winced as he spat tea all over the table and onto her cheek. With a smirk, she wiped it away and went back to taking notes.

oooo

Rebellion did not only take to heart among the poor and abused. At times it took to home in those who had everything but saw the plight of those who had nothing and wanted to change it. More often, it took hold in those who worked for what they had and saw no reason to give up what they felt they had rightfully earned.

Business men, more often than religious fanatics, started the wars of independence.

Which was how Seras found herself rejoining the social world. IT was a necessary evil in her mind and one she willingly endured in order to win more people to the cause she now openly supported. Well, mostly willingly anyway.

"Gabriel, your children are charming."

The businessman nodded, taking the compliment as his due. "They are my pride."

She was, for once, glad of the bright sun that gave her an excuse to don dark glasses. She had chosen the large outdoor fundraising event so she could see how people interacted with their family, as well as avoid a number of overly familiar politicians. While ever man helped, she didn't feel the need to recruit those who cared only about personal wealth and status.

Gabriel Tam hadn't even looked at his children after receiving the compliment.

It was sad, really. She could tell even from their fairly sizable distance that the two _were_ truly charming. Even with a fairly large gap in age, the brother played with his little sister as if she were the most important person in the world. Of course, with parents like theirs, she might very well be.

She watched them for a moment longer, a strange memory tugging at the edge of her mind, before returning her social smile to their father.

"I'm sure they will do great things."

He nodded in acknowledgement of the statement before turning her attention to more important topics.

"Tell me, my lady, what do you think of the rumors of rebellion and uprising on the outer worlds? Despicable behavior if you ask me."

"Isn't it though?"

oooo

"My lady, we are very grateful for your efforts. With your help, we have grown and organized into a true force to be reckoned with."

The blonde nodded, a look of age in her manner and expression that gave startling contrast to her physical appearance.

"I have only done what I thought was right."

"Then, please Lady Seras, when the time comes for war…can we rely on you to help us? Will you lend your help and lead us?"

She looked at him, at the earnest and desperate look in his eyes. He was afraid, she knew, afraid of war and of loss and of pain and of fighting. But above all that, he was determined to see it through, to follow the course of action that he had chosen to whatever end.

"Maybe there won't need to be a war. Maybe they will see the wrong in all of it and let both parties come to terms without the necessity of so much violence and death." She opened her mouth to suggest another possible, but highly improbable, peaceful solution but stopped at the rather dubious expression on his face. "Okay, not likely I know. Still, give me some time to think. There are…others who would be affected by any such decision."

"I understand. Please let me know, when the time comes."

"I promise I will."

oooo

"Father thinks you are being incredibly foolish, Mum."

"I know."

Michael looked at his mother from the corner of his eye and didn't bother to try and hide the smirk. "Oh? Did he tell you last time you two met up at Hellsing Manor?"

Attention caught, Seras looked away from her plans, her cheeks red with embarrassment. "Watch yourself, Michael. No matter what, I am still your mother. Besides, I cannot help it if he hunts me down when I go to Londinum! I don't even know how he manages to find out every time!" Her voice dropped low and he wasn't quite sure but he thought he caught something that sounded like "possessive psychopath" and "stalker".

"So, you two are still fighting then?" His voice was curious, perhaps even a tad dubious, but the sparkle in his eyes was pure mischief.

"He thinks I'm a fool doesn't he?"

Fighting to control his grin, he took her hand and gave her a level look. "All that aside, I should probably tell you that Father also thinks that I am very foolish. He might have even washed his hands of me."

She smiled at him, temper cooling at her son's subtle admission. "I don't want you to choose sides unless its something you really believe in, Michael."

"Don't worry, Mum. I'm not. And even if I were it would have nothing to do with you and Father."

Eyebrows raised she looked at him curiously. "Oh?"

"Nothing at all. Shiara is so frustrated with the Alliance right now that if I sided with them, she would probably divorce me in half a second."

Unable to help it, Seras laughed at the blunt answer.

"Good to know your priorities are in order."

"Damn straight."

oooo

"Now, Henry, before we proceed, I want you to tell me again that you are absolutely sure and dedicated to this course of action."

The man who sat in the chair across from something of a tribunal gave them a steady look. It was obvious from the way he dressed that he did not have much in the way of money and even the way he sat, slightly hunched over, gave more of an impression that he was ready to run than to commit. It was no small wonder that they were asking him over and over again if he was sure. A great deal depended on this and if they had the wrong guy they needed to know now before there was any going back.

"I've told you before, I am."

"I understand. But I have to remind you that after you leave, you are effectively one of them. They are going to train you up and try their damnedest to make you believe exactly what they do. If you aren't one hundred percent on this, Henry, then instead of sending a mole, we are sending them help."

He stared at them, calm despite their accusatory words. He knew that even though one of them had personally recruited them into this, they had never entirely believed that he was one of them. He could do nothing to change and didn't really feel the need to. He was about to open his mouth and repeat the same thing over again when the third person, a woman he had never seen before, spoke.

"Tell me, do you have any family that you are leaving behind or anyone that you care to ever see again? It is very likely that even after all of this is over, you will never see them again."

"No, ma'am. I can't rightly say I have anyone. Never felt much need to tie myself down with any of the sorts of relationships I could make around here."

She nodded, face composed but eyes calculating. She met his gaze unflinching and he had a feeling that she saw more than either of the other two. Something told him that this was not a woman to mess with, despite the fact that she looked a bit too young to be asking such serious questions.

"One more question, Henry, if you will. Why did you join up? What convinced you to become a member of the Independents?"

His eyes narrowed a little and he fought off overt hostility. He always felt that his business as his own, most of the Independents did and that was probably why he got along with them as well as he did. Still, something told him that she would sit there staring at him until he gave her an answer.

"Ma'am, all I want is the guarantee to my own freedom. I don't think anyone should have that right to tell me what to do and how to think. My business is my own and my life is my own. If by signing up and living as one of them and taking their orders, I can get that freedom one day sooner, I will do what it takes."

Her eyes never wavered from meeting his and he felt like she was some sort of human lie detector test, like she could see into his very soul and root out his motives. She went on staring at him for another minute before her lips quirked up into a smile.

"Learning how to properly do violence is an added incentive too, I imagine."

He didn't say anything to that and wasn't given a chance to before she looked away and gave a nod of approval to the other two.

"I think he is our man."

The faction leader nodded his head and turned to look at their new mole.

"I forgot to mention it before, but this woman is Seras. She is funding this entire operation and will be able to use her…influence to get you where you need to be. If you meet with anyone during the course of your time as a mole, it will be her. She will do nothing to break your cover unless she has information she feels you need."

He looked at her again, a bit more wary of this mystery woman who was so young but commanded respect from the Independents as well as having connections to the Alliance and a whole boatload of cash. She seemed to sense his doubt and smiled at him.

"Let's just say that I'm a bit of a spy myself but under even deeper cover."

For a moment he just stared before slowly nodding. The next few minutes passed quickly as they discussed the operation to move his right eye and replace it with the camera that would feed information to their specialty receivers. The woman did a lot of the talking, obviously having procured the device, but it became more of a discussion as they agreed on what would happen after and his next course of action. In the end she stood up and made to leave, citing duties elsewhere. Before she left, though, she stood next to him and looked down into his eyes.

"They are going to take that posture away from you, make you sit up straight instead of leaning forward, ready to take on what comes next. Keep the attitude though."

"That is the plan."

She smiled again, a knowing twinkle in her eyes that was only barely touched with a sadness that was so old she seemed ancient.

"I cannot guarantee it, but I hope one day, under better circumstances, you and I will be able to meet again."

He stilled, not able to remember the last time someone had said something like that to him, or if they ever had. He nodded.

"I hope so too, Miss Seras."

"Until next time then. But if not, I hope you live a good life, Derrial Book."

"Yes, ma'am."

oooo

_Seras,_

_I hate to say it but things have gotten pretty bad around here. I think we could all use some of your coolheaded ideas to help us sort out the matter. That and I could also use my friend right now. Things are beginning to get pretty rowdy and I think that someone is gonna pick a fight sooner than later. Seems like war has been about to break out for the past couple years but this is a bit more than that. If you can, I could sure use your company right about now._

_ Love you,_

_ Anne_

oooo

"I know you are in a rush to leave, have been since you received that letter from your friend, but give me just a moment, Seras, please."

She looked up from the console and gave him a steady look that turned into a sad sort of smile.

"It's funny how old you look now compared to when I first signed up with Parliament. Have that many years really passed?"

Nikolai smirked, the humor dying away almost as quickly as it came. "It has. It won't be too much longer before my oh so young son will be taking over for me. I think he'll have brown hair."

"It look good."

He sighed and took her hand off of the controls to give it a little squeeze. "I'm not a fighter, Seras. I never have been. I wish that I could go with you and fight this war by your side but that just isn't me. I know you have been fed up with me, but please believe me when I say that we have always been on the same side."

Her smile grew warmer and she squeezed back. "I know. You are just trying to do things your way. I don't blame you."

"What I'm doing, you silly idealist, is planning ahead. You tell me that nothing you've seen can tell us how this war will end. So let me do my best to make sure that you have a place to come back to, no matter what happens in the end."

"I…thank you, Nikolai," she murmured, lips tight and eyes worried. "I do appreciate it."

"Looking after you is not an entirely thankless job," he grinned, blue eyes gleaming with humor. "I'll do my best to keep your name out of the official records and try to hide your position. Right now everyone thinks that you are withdrawing to keep yourself impartial. I'll try to keep it that way."

Standing up, she gave him a quick but sincere hug. "You have been a good friend to me. Thank you for always going that one extra step."

The older vampire shrugged. "It's all part of my cunning plan to win you for my own."

"Stay safe," she pleaded, growing serious again. "Keep…keep an eye on him for me."

"A harsh rejection indeed. Asking someone who is paying you court to look after your estranged husband. I am wounded."

"Be wounded off my ship then," she prodded wryly. "I have a feeling that I have no time to waste."

"I hope things are better than you are fearing."

"Me too."

oooo

There was nothing left.

Fire still burned on in parts of the field and a few trees but the main structure had gone out leaving charred remains behind to signify the place where once such happiness had lived. The smell of blood was masked by the odor of scorched earth and life, but she could still smell it as she carefully made her way through the remains. The patches of grass left over gave indication that other ships had landed. The still burning embers told her that whatever had happened, she had only barely missed it…a day, maybe two.

There had been fighting before the destruction. The blood told her that. In her mind, she could paint the scene quite vividly. The Alliance men had come back and asked for too much. Instead of giving in, they had fought. With more than twenty ranch hands of solid build to back her up, the fight had been easy to win. Except bullies always brought back up.

They had probably had no warning before the sky turned to fire. Hell had rained down on them and she could only hope that it was a quick and painless end.

She hadn't been fast enough.

Something at the edge of her vision caught her eye and she looked away from the smoldering remains of her friends home. A cross stood under one of the remaining trees, leaves burned away and bark blackened. Without a conscious decision, she found herself beside it, kneeling on the freshly turned ground. It was a quickly constructed marker, made of partially charred wood, but it did its job.

_Anne Reynolds_

_ Beloved boss, cherished friend, best of mothers_

Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked but she still found it in herself to smile a little. Little Mal had survived somehow. He had probably been rushing back home just as she had been. She hoped that he would find strength in the atrocity and not weakness. He was a fighter and she prayed that it would keep him going until the pain could lessen.

There was nothing left. Rising to stand, she looked around feeling lost and guilty. Where had her ability to foresee gone? Why had she not sensed this? Why had she not burned everything she had to make sure she made it on time? Why?

Her questions took her all the way to the spot where she had once laid her final master to rest. But that too was gone, the soil broken and torn away. The marker was gone too, probably turned into so much dust. She turned her eyes to the horizon and the sorrow began to seep into anger. No matter how much she blamed herself, there were others who were truly at fault. It wasn't her guilt that was killing this planet, the taste of a dying atmosphere and barren land already settling into the air. Others were to blame and, one way or another, they would find their justice.

When she stepped back into her aging ship, she left all hesitation behind. The time had come and she had a new war to fight. It was not a war to defeat chaotic evil nor a war for survival. It was not even a battle of territory, though she knew that at least one side thought of it that way. She felt something kin to the American Revolutionaries as she punched a familiar code into her long distance communicator.

"Andrews, the war has started. Shadow is lost."

"Ma'am! Are you cer-"

"I will brief you in the War Room. Gather the other generals."

"Then you are going to accept and take leadership?"

"Andrews, the War for Independence has begun. Spread the word."

"Yes, General Victoria."

She turned off the communicator and looked at the stars that dotted the void of the Black. Her eyes were focused forward but her mind was staring still at the cross below a dying tree. Quietly, she gave those ghosts, the first casualties of war, her promise.

"We will be victorious."

* * *

AN: I hope it was enjoyable. It was a bit more of a roller coaster in terms of events and emotions etc but a lot of it was necessary to further the plot (and timeline) along. I also apologize if it seemed disjointed. While most of the beginning part and the ending part were written more or less continously, several parts were written in sections, scene by scene, and added in as I found time to write. I'm afraid this might have taken away from the flow quite a bit.

Please let me know if you see any jarring errors so that I might fix them and _please_ let me know if anything was confusing. I'll either do my best to amend this chapter, answer your question separately or explain it further in coming chapters.

Thank you for your patience! I hope you have a Happy Easter (or whichever holiday you choose to observe).

Til next time!


	6. Collateral Damage

Disclaimer: I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)

Citation: I feel the need to express that all items of Firefly canon come from extreme (probably excessive) levels of research including: the show, the movie, the scripts, official books put out by QMx and other merchandise from them that help with supplying dates and regional locations as well as city names and population etc, the comic books (especially The Shepard's Tale in this chapter) as well as interviews and anything else I could lay my hands on. Some of it is reworked to fit into context, but for the most part, it is as canon as I can make it.

Note: It's longer than I intended it to be and slightly lopsided but much of the additional stuff is humor and paying attention to at least one character that needs some love. Hopefully it'll still please.

* * *

**Collateral Damage**

oooo

_And these wars; they can never be won_  
_does anyone know or care how they begun?_  
_They just promise to go on, and on, and on_

oooo

"You were not my first choice, I'll be honest," the petite blond woman commented as she looked at the file laid out on the table. The stone walls of the interview room made it seem more like an interrogation chamber than a place to meet with potential clients. Her stern expression didn't help either.

"I realize I didn't graduate first in my class but there were extenuating circumstances." The young man tried not to stammer, never a good idea on a job interview, but here steady gaze unnerved him even while it was focused on the picture of him rather than himself.

"Actually, it has nothing to do with that really. I was looking for a girl at first. Miss Lia Cronin graduated behind you in rank and was my first choice." She closed the file and looked up at him at last. He tried hard not to flinch away from the directness of her gaze, not quite succeeding, when, suddenly, she smiled. "However, Miss Cronin has expressed a desire to work in medical transportation. It is too honorable a desire for me to want to wish her anything but the best." Her eyes crinkled slightly at the corners in a sign of humor. "So now I find myself simply looking for the best."

He straightened a little, cocking his head to the side and slightly forward. "O-oh?"

"Yes." Her features continued to soften and the entire atmosphere around her became more likable as she continued. "Your fellow graduate who goes by the unlikely name of Mr. Universe did not bother to cover his tracks. Or, at least, he did, but not with the expectation of someone as good as he is to try and uncover them."

"Oh, so you know." The fair haired man relaxed a bit more and leaned back in his chair in a sort of practiced negligence. "Well, I didn't want to betray a fellow student, so I, well," he trailed off, demeanor strengthening as he tried to seem as if he had been full of confidence since the start.

"Your loyalty is admirable," she commented and smiled at him in such a way that he was reminded of the way some teachers would sometimes talk to their students, affectionate patronizing to someone who was still young and naïve.

"So, uh, what sort of job are we talking about?"

"I need a personal pilot. Typically I do the job on my own but I would like someone to take over. My…responsibilities have increased."

"Sounds simple," he commented slowly. "So what's the catch?"

"You'd be flying the personal property of a general of the Independent forces. As such, you would be labeled an Independent yourself. A Browncoat."

"Your coat is of a brownish color," he mumbled quietly. The young man considered her matter of fact words with slight trepidation. She looked way too young for somebody with that sort of responsibility but he could tell that she wasn't joking. The job was serious. But war?

"Would I have to fight?"

Her smile widened into a grin. "Not at all. You will physically be in very little danger excepting any situation where the battle is in space. But from your file I can tell you should be able to handle that easily."

Ego thoroughly boosted, he sat up and offered her his hand.

"Then you have yourself a pilot, General."

She took his hand and shook it. "You can call me Seras, Hoban."

He winced. "Please," he pleaded, "call me Wash."

oooo

Much of the early part of the war was not something that required the expertise of a general. In reality, it began as an uprising. News of what had occurred on Shadow spread. The whispers crept through the Murphy Quadrant and then into the Georgia system and the Border worlds of the White Star. Those who had been ready and simply waiting for where the hammer would fall began the fight on their own territories. They took the Alliance by surprise and there were entire moons and worlds that were seized quickly, united together in belief of the Independents.

Those who had not even realized that they were waiting for a signal acted and quiet battles were won and lost. Towns, cities and worlds that had weak Alliance control to begin with seized their property and joined the decision to take a stand. Others lost and limped away, beaten but not broken, to join the effort on elsewhere.

Through the first year of the war, the skirmishes were battles without cohesion as colors were filled in on a map and the people chose sides. Before long, there were not areas of one idea inside of another and each moon and planet had chosen a side. Most in the core donned the grey suits of the Alliance but those who put on the Browncoats that gave them name were no small number.

So, as the first year of the war slipped into the second, the pieces fell into place like soldiers on a chess board, ready to strike at their leader's command. The newly formed army of the Independents gained organization and the vast numbers of the Alliance gained mythos and all were ready to fight.

But…how do you fight a war in space?

oooo

"All operations of military intelligence are to cease activity at their locations and relocate to the new home base of operations on Hera at Central Argos."

"Military intelligence, an oxymoron in the most classic sense."

The blonde glared at the console in abstract before putting the microphone on pause.

"Don't make snarky comments while I am in the middle of recording a command wave."

"You are so boring, Ice Princess," the console responded tiredly.

She glowered at the console again before pressing the button once more. "Relocation should begin immediately. Each locations highest ranking officer must check in with the new Headquarters within twenty-four hours. If there are problems with relocation or in case of combat, notify HQ A.S.A.P."

Once more she pressed the button that ceased the recording and then keyed in the signal to send the wave across the subbanded wave system coded for only certain receptor points. With a sigh, she sat back in the co-pilot's chair and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Uh, Seras?"

"Yeah, Wash?"

"Why does your console talk to you?"

She opened her eyes and found the young pilot staring at the controls with lowered brow and a half open mouth, hands held up against his chest as if afraid to touch it.

"It is an Artificial Intelligence System. He usually just acts as user interface but he also has the annoying and quite frequent habit of speaking his mind…so to speak."

"Uh, okay then," Wash answered hesitantly. "But it-"

"I don't bite, Fly Boy."

She smirked. "He doesn't bite-"

"Unlike some people."

"- but he doesn't shut up either unless you turn off the audio," she finished, glancing shrewdly at the speaker.

"Spoilsport," the console remarked wryly.

"Behave or I'll unplug you."

"Fine," the voice sighed. "I'll just go back to directing our trajectory and collision avoidance mapping and long range scans for Alliance ships and intelligence. Don't mind me. I'm not important."

Wash stared down at the console for a minute, mind obviously churning over the idea of whether or not it was safe to touch the controls. Finally he swiveled the chair to face the General-Captain type person.

"Where, uh, did he come from then?"

Her eyes softened and she smiled fondly, mind far away. "He was a gift of sorts, a legacy, that my daughter-in-law's father left her before going on to a rather spectacular end."

"Oh," the pilot nodded, turning away slowly before pausing and whirling to look back at her again. "Wait, did you just say daughter-in-law? How old- I mean, uh, you look very young."

She winked at him before settling back into the chair once more, kicking her feet up to rest carefully on the secondary console.

"I moisturize."

oooo

"Miss General person, sir, are you absolutely sure you want to visit a Core planet when you are, in fact, a lead general of the Independent Army?" The pilot's voice was tinged with more than a little hesitation, edging on hysterical, as he looked up at the calm features of his boss. "I mean, if you want to turn yourself in, there are better ways – one that don't involve my getting arrested in tortured. I'm not personally a fan of torture."

"Or shutting up," the console commented dryly.

"Not like you ever do," Wash retorted defensively. "Chanting Irish Sea Shanties while I'm trying to sleep seems to be the exact opposite of shutting up if you ask me."

"Nobody did, Pathetic Pilot."

"You know, I may not be some freak genius, but I am fairly sure I can still disable you."

"Oh god no! Not the easily accessible "off" button!" the voice cried with heavily sarcastic horror. "How foul!"

"Children."

Seras had not spoken loudly but her single word brought absolute silence. The fair haired pilot looked up at her with mouth gaping before closing and looking away. If she noticed the way his ears turned red at being taken to task for arguing with a damn computer, she was kind enough not to comment.

"I promise you, Wash, everything is fine. Act normal and give this code if you get an inquiry, which I doubt." She provided him with a series of numbers which was followed by landing coordinates. "And be careful. Shiara worked hard on the garden."

"Yes, ma'am."

A few minutes later, the petite blonde woman led the way to the entrance of the fairly large and grand home. Smirking at the somewhat flabbergasted look on her pilot's face, she unlocked the door and gestured for him to enter before her. His trail through the rooms was slow and aimless as she took a more direct path to the large study/office area. Originally intended to be a family room of sorts, they had loved the wide open feel and converted into a shared work area where all three of them could feel comfortable.

"You _live_ here?' Wash's incredulous voice carried through the house from one of the other rooms.

Seras couldn't help but chuckle at his open amazement. "Among other places," she replied humorously as he entered the room at last.

His eyes widened more for a moment before he shook his head a little. "I don't think I'm charging you enough."

"Could be," she murmured with a soft laugh when a quiet buzz indicated a call. She sighed wearily and glanced at her pilot to judge his distance into the room before pressing the receiver. A large image flickered to life on what had previously appeared to blank wall and a kind woman of indeterminenant but definite age appeared.

"Lady Hellsing! I thought I saw you land! I thought you were, I mean, Lord Masters had informed me that you would be absenting yourself until the …hostilities were over."

Seras smiled, glancing over a movement on her peripheral to find Wash mouthing "Lady Hellsing" in a curious way before returning her gaze to the screen.

"That is correct, Senator Williams. I feel it is better that I present myself as a…neutral party if I am to help to my fullest capacity as councilor." She shot her pilot a suppressing look at his quiet snort and he mouthed _neutral? _back to her.

"Of course," the congresswoman nodded understandingly. "May this war be over soon. Not only for the sake of peace, of course, but because your presence is always a positive one. I won't keep you. Take care."

"You too," the vampire responded with genuine concern before pressing down on the receiver and ending the call.

"There are a lot of things that you aren't telling me, I think," he remarked casually as he came into the room more fully.

"Most people have secrets. Maybe not you," she chuckled, giving him a laughing look as he made a sound of protest before shrugging and accepting the statement as truth. She continued to chuckle as she turned her attention to her desk. Michael had promised to leave some documents and files for her and she was pleased to see that he had been able to keep his word. But that was not all she found.

Carefully, she picked up a letter and held it up, lips curling up nostalgically as she felt the crisp paper in her hands. So few people used paper anymore.

"Love note?"

"Doubt it," she murmured, opening it carefully. A cursory glance made her pause and curiosity turned to sadness as she gave it a proper read.

_ Miss Vicky,_

_ I found your address on one of those packages you sent me and Momma and I thought it was high time I sent you a letter. I saw that someone had visited her gravesite and I knew that it had to be you. She told me when she called me home that she had sent for you but knew that you wouldn't be able to make it in time. I think she was just happy to know that someone was coming, even if it was too late._

_ I want you to know that she died proper. She used to tell me when I was growing up that everybody died the trick was to do it right and live well in the meantime. And she did. She sent those Alliance bastards packing and off her ranch but she got hurt pretty bad. My ownself, I got there just in time to find out that she didn't have but an hour or so to go on. She was a smart lady and she knew that they would come back so she sent all the hands off to where they'd be safe and banged me up right proper for trying to take her to the hospital._

_ She died before I could even get her there but they gave it a good try. All the same, she didn't have to live to see the ranch burnt to hell. I'm thankful to God for that. I gave her a good burial and the local Shepard helped put her to peace._

_ I think we all know that this was the start. Time has come for us to stand straight and tall and fight for the right to those blessings that God gave us. I'm joining up to the army, going to be a proper Browncoat. I hope one day our paths will cross again. In the meantime, I'd like to say thank you for being a right good friend to Momma and me through the years._

_ Yours,_

_ Mal_

"That's one hell of a love letter, Seras."

She looked up at her pilot and saw concern molding wrinkles into his face and she realized that she was crying. Slowly, she folded the paper and put it in her coat pocket. She wiped away her tears and gave Wash a smile.

"Just a note from an old friend I hadn't expected to hear from for a long time."

He looked at her for a bit longer, his open features explaining clearly that he was trying to decide whether or not to believe her. Finally he nodded.

"If you say so."

Seras grinned, realizing that despite knowing him for a relatively short time, she really liked the man she had hired to cart her around the Verse. She picked up the files she had originally come to get and walked past him with a wink. She was almost to the front door when she called over her shoulder with a laugh.

"Besides, I doubt my husband would tolerate a love letter."

There was a moment of silence, then, "Wait, you have a husband?"

Laughing, she walked out the door, already mentally preparing answers for her oh so curious and honest pilot.

oooo

There was always something delightful about stepping into a Companion House. Even when she wasn't dressed in clothes that were more designed for war than…play, she felt as if she had stepped into a secret world. She imagined herself as a spy for the other normal folk who would never see the inside of such a place.

"Lady Shiara, it is so wonderful to see you again. Welcome home."

Or something like that.

"I don't know if I would call it home, Mistress, but definitely a familiar sight. It is nice to see that certain things never change no matter what the political climate."

"Indeed," the tall, dark haired woman agreed with a knowing smile and a twinkle in her eyes. "Certain things never go out of style."

The two shared an understanding smile of mischief before the vampire turned her mind back to business. "As much as it is fun to chat, truly I am pressed for time. I am here to speak to-"

"To your father, of course. He is in his preparation chamber. I believe he has lessons with his…other students today. He said he would need to leave soon but you should be able to catch him if you hurry."

Shiara politely thanked the woman before making her way through the familiar hallways and entering his private quarters without knocking. If he was offended by her sudden presence, he gave no indication, but the look he shot her let her know what he felt of her bad manners.

"You are growing bad habits, daughter. It's bad enough that she keeps my family from me. Now she accepts it as your manners fly away."

His words were cold and his face unchanging but she ignored both and strode forth to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"It's good to see you, too."

For another moment, he glared at her but then gave into the knowledge that she was impervious to his moods and grudgingly gave her a half smile and pat on the head. She smiled wider and he waved for her to sit.

"What piece of gossip brings you here today?"

Taking a seat on the wide settee, she merely watched him for a moment as he busied himself with the paperwork he had been looking through before she interrupted. She understood his loyalty to the cause he swore to serve. In his life, he had been a king of sorts and then lived to see his country torn apart and his name become synonymous with a demon. He had lived through war after war and seen the countries of the world change shape and loyalty.

She knew, though he never spoke of it, that he had ruled with an iron fist. He had little tolerance for the villainy of life and had made drastic moves to combat the harms of the world. He was, if not the first, one of the most memorable of examples of the effectiveness of extreme actions meant to inspire fear and understanding of the world they lived in.

So she could understand his decision to remain loyal to an Alliance that sought to consolidate wealth and understanding and to use force to rule when necessary. She also understood that his loyalty, once given, was absolute until something powerful made him change his mind.

She didn't bother to try.

"You have presumably come a long way, Little Red. It seems foolish to have done so only to sit there and stare at me."

Brought back to the present, she found herself meeting his red eyes, gleaming with a sort of tired humor. Suddenly, she realized that he knew what she had come to say.

"It's not gossip, you know. They would be mad at me if they knew I had come. But it is high time that someone act like a grown up."

"That _would_ fall to you then wouldn't it," Alucard commented dryly.

"We all joined up, you know. It was a decision we all came to separately. She didn't ask us to," the confidence in her voice was belied by the pleading in her eyes. "He and I aren't taking sides. Not between you two. He-he would never choose one of you over the other."

For a moment as she began to talk faster, almost shaking as she begged him to believe her, he felt like tormenting her. She claimed to not take sides but in the end he was still left on the other side of the line from all of them, painted as the monster. Then he sighed.

"Yes, daughter, I understand. Whatever else I know, you and my son are capable of making your own choices. Nor do I think that she would sink low enough to put you in the middle of our…disagreement." His lips quirked a little. "I just don't have to like it."

Her face lit up in a radiant smile and she leapt up to hug him. "Michael was worried. He wouldn't say anything but I know that this, uh, disagreement, is hurting him as much as…anyone really."

"Including you?" he asked fondly.

"I would be lying if I said it didn't. But my parents were always bickering and their fights lasted years." She shrugged. "I can't say that I really fear the worst. Not when you two still manage to find time to, uh, _be alone together_ in the middle of shouting how much you dislike one another."

He sighed, unable to argue her point and unwilling to admit to any doubt he might have. "As much as I appreciate your optimism and your company, Little Red, we are still fighting on opposite sides of a war. No matter how it ends up, there is still a fight to be fought between the two of us."

She grinned, mischief dancing in her eyes. "And aren't you looking forward to it?"

He looked down at her and would have been hard pressed to deny his pride in her at that moment. He grinned manically.

"It's what I do."

oooo

It seemed strange to admit in a time of war, but there was a lot of time that the General and her Pilot spent being rather bored. Much of what they did was simply commuting from one area to the next or sitting at headquarters in strategy meetings (where Wash's flying expertise came in surprisingly handy) or reviewing troop ranks and who deserved a promotion and who deserved to be taken out completely (several loyal soldiers often made favorable comments about a Sergeant Reynolds but none of his commanding officers could ever confirm their stories) and there was even administrative work to be done (someone had to see that people got paid). And since Nikolai had politely requested – and Alucard had less than subtly demanded via Shiara – that she not take part in any of the actual face to face combat lest her nature be revealed, which would cause an entire series of problems, her time was spent living between battles. For a long while, that time was itself a long while.

Still, she found things to do.

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

The Tyrannosaurus edged slowly away from the calmly approaching raptor. Back against the wall, it sought escape out of the corner of tis eyes, gaze fixed on the ever nearing dinosaur.

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die," the raptor repeated, closing in on the fleeing tyrannosaurs.

"Will you stop saying that?" the large dinosaur exclaimed as he found a temporary way out of the corner he was being backed into.

In retaliation, the raptor repeated the phrase again and then again, the speed of the repetition rising. As it spoke, it finally trapped the tyrannosaurus. The dinosaur begged for its life, offering money and power but the raptor swiftly and mercilessly ended its life.

"Give me my father back you son of a-"

"As much as I greatly admire a classic," the console chimed in suddenly, abruptly dragging the attention of Seras and Wash from where they sat, dinosaurs in hand, "don't you think you are a _little_ old to be playing with dinosaurs, Fierce Female Fighter?"

The blonde woman looked at the toy in her hand and then at her console before giving a careless shrug and a gamine grin.

"Not at all."

oooo

One day, it seemed, there was suddenly no room for boredom. The war had started in earnest, or had months ago but perhaps not. How does one draw a line between preliminaries and the true blood baths? All Seras knew as she sat on her ship in the middle of the Black was that the Roll of the Dead was growing longer and longer after each battle. At the beginning reading through the lists made her feel sorrow but yet a quiet pride in humanity for still producing people who would be proud to die for their beliefs and ideals.

Now she just felt tired.

All too often, Wash would come upon her in the dead of what their ship called night and find her staring at the various screens that lit up her onboard office area. At times there would be coordinates and battle plans, lines of strategy and manpower dotting the space of landscapes over a dozen worlds. At others she displayed screens of never ending text. Sometimes they were just missives from the troops or from the two that she had introduced as her son and daughter in law even though they still looked older than she did. Sometimes the words seemed even more personal and he would back away quietly from where she sat in that strange way she had, crying without knowing.

Almost always, though, he found two screens were at the forefront of her attention. One scrolled endlessly through the list of the dead. He wished passionately that he could convince her to turn it off, or even get the insane computer to do it. No one needed that much death and guilt staring them constantly in the face. He didn't though, suspecting that she would not take it as well meant advice from someone who cared.

The other screen was more mystifying. It looked almost like someone walking around with a capture at all times. The image jumped and panned awkwardly like an amateur recorder at their worst. He could never look at it long, the strange filming style often making him feel nauseous. Still, after he found her watching it for the umpteenth time, he broke the silence and asked.

"It is live feed from our mole."

Her voice was so tired and he opened his mouth to suggest she do something, anything, to rest but he closed it once more. Glad she wasn't looking at his face, which he knew was probably full of pity and worry, he questioned further.

"Mole? Where?"

"He's done well in the past few years. He is captain of one of their ships now. Through him we are able to get a lot of covert information. It is vital information actually," she murmured softly. "They have so many soldiers. If we didn't have his edge, we wouldn't have so many victories for the Independent side."

Wash nodded slowly, understanding filtering through even as he felt a bit of terror at the news that even the General was suspecting that she was fighting on the losing side of the war.

"Does he have a name or am I not supposed to know?"

She looked up at him finally, eyes sorrowful in addition to being exhausted. "He came into life as Henry Evans. His name is different now though."

"Henry," he smiled, settling into the chair beside her. "That's a good name. Far better than mine." His heart brightened a little at the knowledge that he had earned a smile from her, one that almost seemed free of exhaustion. "So what victories has Henry won for us?"

"We are about to see, really," she answered pensively. "We are about to embark on a coordinated attack. One of our covert operatives should be on the way to meet with him now. If everything goes as planned, it might mean the end of the war."

"Then let's hope that happens, huh?"

"Yeah. Hope." She leaned back in her chair, silent for a moment before turning her face towards him again. "I knew a girl named Hope once. She didn't like her name much either, not that she would have ever told her parents."

"Is that right?"

Her thoughts on other things at last, Wash relaxed into the conversation and listened as the ancient girl beside him regaled him with funny stories about a girl she once knew.

oooo

The entire landscape was filled with sand, dune upon dune of the stuff creating hypnotic lines as the wind blew. For some reason, as he stared at it, he thought of the Sahara desert on Earth-That-Was. Had people lived in that wasteland? Had they avoided it? Where they doomed to death if stranded there? Was he?

His gaze drifted down from the horizon and down to his feet. They were simply shod in military issue boots, scuffed and dirty from the struggle he'd put up when they shoved him into the pod, dirt from the few steps he took from the smoldering wreckage. They were simply feet, feet that had taken him far from the home he was born on. He wanted to blame his feet for winding up on this scrap of nothing on a backwater planet, but he knew he couldn't. His feet hadn't taken him there, his anger had, his hatred and his desire.

_"You knew my mother once, I think," the lovely red haired woman commented casually from where she sat. Her eyes never left the screen and the series of numbers and scientific data that she was compiling for the Alliance. _

_ "Did I?" he asked softly, wondering why she had spoken in the first place. He had been in the same room with her for the past hour and seemed to exist all in her own world, oblivious of the people who had come and gone from the Alliance Base that served for strategy planning._

_ "Yes. She helped you with an operation once. Helped you to see."_

_ Suddenly, he stilled. Despite the fact that his superiors had wanted him for his unflinching willingness to use force, he was a clever man. He instantly understood what she meant and why she had waited so long – waited for him to be alone._

_ "I do believe I might remember that. How is she doing?"_

_ Finally, the woman turned to look at him and if he hadn't already been tense the look in her eyes would have set him on edge. It was sympathetic in the way that no one wanted to see aimed at them. Pity stared at him, pity and understanding that no matter how events unfolded, he would be the one blamed for so much._

_ "She's doing just fine. You know how she is, always marching on, going forward with all her plans." She looked away, standing up as she typed in a few strokes, locking the terminal. She pulled a chip out of the machine and he realized that she was probably doing much more than collating data. "I imagine she would tell you to do much the same."_

_ He stiffened before sighing softly. Nodding, he said nothing more as she left the room with that same sad look on her face. But that didn't matter. He had been given the go ahead. It was time to act._

Thousands of people had died. For nothing. All of his anger at the Alliance, at his father, at the Verse in general for taking away the right to simply be free, it had gotten him so far. His hatred had taken him that extra step and behind all of it was that simple desire, a desire that had crushed civilizations and souls.

To be free.

But they weren't free. They wouldn't be. It had failed, a strategy so brilliant that it had gone almost perfectly according to plan. The Alliance would have been crippled and the Independants victorious. People would be free to live as they wished. But something had failed, something that he knew was his own fault. He had not studied hard enough, had not planned well enough.

Thousands had died. At his hand.

"They aren't going to move themselves."

His gaze jerked up and there she was scarce yards away. Her short blonde hair moved gently in the breeze and her long brown coat slapped softly against her bare legs and boots. He wouldn't have mistaken her for anything, she looked the same as she had all those years before. She stared at him and he found the one difference in her, a sadness swimming in her eyes that was even deeper than the woman who had claimed to be her daughter. Her eyes cried out for forgiveness while her posture, her straight back and raised chin, refused to ask for it.

"Come on, Henry. I'm here to take you home or wherever you would like to go. It's…it's the least I can do," her voice broke but she ignored it and kept her gaze steady to his.

"No."

"No? You want to just sit here in the- "

"No," he interrupted her, shaking his head. "I'm not Henry anymore."

Her eyes grew softer still, understanding. "Well, then, who are you?"

"I-I don't know," he stuttered. He knew that tears had begun to seep from his eyes but he didn't care to stop them. The only one to see was this woman and he felt instinctively that she would not judge them.

"Tell me," she murmured, somehow close to him without his having noticed her approach.

"Henry Evans was a thief. He was no good and violent and only after what he could get to keep him going for the next little while." He paused, eyes back on his feet. "Officer Derrial Book was a bastard. He did unspeakable things to get his way. He killed thousands and tried to shift the blame."

He looked up to her again, almost afraid to meet her eyes even though he knew she shared his guilt. She might not have made the plan but she had given the okay. She had let it proceed. She had put him in the position to make those plans and she was responsible for him being there in the first place. Every sin he had committed, she shared.

"I can't pretend to be the same man I was before but who would want to claim the name of the monster?"

She reached up and put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched but didn't move away and when she smiled, it was sweet and made him feel a hint of peace.

"Maybe it's time you find a new title."

Slowly, he nodded and the two silently made their way away from the wreckage of the pod they had shoved him in as punishment for his sin, caring not if he lived or died. Step followed step and his feet led the way. He had nothing else left to follow but, maybe, one day he would.

oooo

Gettysburg had been the turning point of the American Civil War. In the War for Independence, it had been the catastrophic events that surrounded an intelligence strike gone wrong and the loss of life of all aboard the IAV Alexander and several other Independent vessals. Those outside of Command would not have known that the loss of a mole in key position was the real turning point, they just felt the effects.

And they were harsh.

Battles that had taken a week, perhaps two, had turned into drawn own sieges that lasted months. Supply lines began to run dry and slowly but surely, the Alliance began to just wear the Independents down, pure and simple. Both armies had the fierce loyalty of their soldiers and both and great strategists at their helms. As the war passed from the third year to the fourth and then into the fifth, it became a true battle of attrition, with each simply trying to whittle away as much as they could of the other side.

Unfortunately, the Alliance just had more men.

oooo

"I think, Mum, that our officers are a large part of the problem."

Michael had spoken softly, not entirely sure if he actually wanted to disturb his mother. He was sitting there on her relic of a ship staring at a panel of screens. He recognized some of the battle plans and some of the lists of supply lines. He also recognized the feed from the camera inserted into the mole's eye and briefly wondered why she still kept it on despite its almost static images. But more than anything, he recognized the list of the dead that scrolled endlessly. He knew that it had two columns now, one for each army. He also knew from the pilot that she spent a lot of time watching that screen with a blank expression.

"Some men just can't handle war, Michael. Not really, not in the long run."

Her voice was tired and it hurt him to hear it. Once more, he wished for an end to the war, whichever side victorious, just to see her rest again.

"I know, Mum. But with these kind of battles…its more problematic. If the lieutenant of the 57th hadn't bumbled it so bad, that battle outside of Du-Khang might have ended differently. You might think about promoting that sergeant you are so fond of."

Finally, she smiled and looked away from the screen and up at him. Her eyes quickly read his face and she reached out a hand to take his and squeeze it briefly. Always the mother, she was giving him comfort

"And relieve him of his fun?" She shook her head. "Sometimes, Michael, a title does not a leader make but rather it breaks. Some people are just naturally leaders. While you and I know that he does most of the heavy lifting, there is no need to make it official. If he'd wanted that, he wouldn't have tried so hard to hide what his commanding officer did."

Michael nodded before pulling his mother to her feet and pushing her out of the door and into the cooridor.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up," he responded with a smile. "Now, since it will still be a long while before we make it to New Kashmir to aid those troops of yours, why don't we fill it by playing dinosaurs with your all to loyal pilot?"

"He is rather loyal, isn't he?" she chuckled fondly. "I'm surprised he hasn't upped and left me for forcing him to fly me through this whole damned war."

"What can I say, Seras," a voice chimed in from the end of the cooridor, followed quickly by a grinning head. "You pay very well, I don't have to fight and the only one who criticizes me for playing with dinosaurs at my age is your _huen dahn_ computer."

Michael grinned. "Try having him for a father-in-law."

oooo

It happened on the way back from the Battle of Sturges, such a pointless bloodbath that it left her with a bad taste in her mouth and her more than capable pilot tired from spending hours at his craft. She might have even seen it coming, in that way that she had, but she didn't. It had been so long since she had slept, longer than she could remember, and when she did the dreams came in wisps and clouds telling her nothing. But even if she had known, she still would have fought her way back to Hera, to stop the Alliance from winning their world. Still, in the end, she was stopped on her way to the battle and captured .

By her husband.

"I'll just go wait in my cell. Do I have a cell? Is there _anywhere_ I can wait to get away from the awful tension of a bickering married couple that won't say anything?"

Both vampires looked at Wash as he stuttered nervously, though apparently more from being caught in the middle of a marital fight than from being caught by the enemy. After a moment, Alucard gestured down the metal cooridor.

"Two down on the left."

Wash nodded quickly, gratefully, and paused only long enough to shoot Seras an apologetic glance before disappearing from the room. She glanced after him, less upset by his hasty abandonment as she was tired, then looked back at the husband she hadn't seen in years.

A large part of her wanted nothing more than to curl up in his lap and close her eyes and wait for all the horror to go away. An only marginally smaller part was tempted to treat him to his conjugal rights – for stress release if nothing else. However, she ended up listening to the smallest part which still remained the most stubborn in its dedication to a cause that she was watching lose day by day.

"Why?"

Alucard did not pretend to misunderstand her simple question and if he was tired or felt anything of what she did, he kept it well concealed.

"Because I can't have you captured."

"Oh, Alucard," she sighed, leaning forward to drop her head into her hands, staring down at the table that separated them. "What does it matter anymore? It would be impossible for them not to know that General Victoria was part of it all. There is no going back."

Slowly, he reached forward and hooked a finger under her chin, raising her face to look into his once more. "You would be surprised at what they don't know, _draculina_. Your friend in the government has done quite a bit to keep your name from the intelligence data. You are just a ghost to them."

His fingers lingered and for a moment they twitched and he withdrew his hand quickly, as if fighting to linger longer. She stared at his hands for a few seconds before raising her gaze to his eyes again. The look continued for some time as she considered his words, knowing them for truth if for no other reason than that there was no purpose in him lying. Still, she couldn't let it stand.

"You cannot do this, Alucard. I have to go. This may very well be the end. I have fought for them this long. I will finish it with them."

His chuckle set her back up and turned her tired gaze into a glare. Before she could speak, though, he cut her off.

"You do not have the strength to fight me, Seras Victoria, General of the Brown Coats. Our son tells me that you barely rest, his wife that you barely feed – telling your pilot that you are on some sort of idiotic liquid diet that even she thinks he doesn't totally believe. At your strongest, you might have been able to fight your way from here, but right now, you do not have the power."

She seethed silently, knowing perfectly well that he was correct and damning him for it. It took all the strength she had left not to strike him at that moment, a reaction she was willing to bet he wanted. Instead she stared at him with that knowing smirk on his face and sought calm. When that did not come, she stood without word and followed in the path that her pilot had taken half an hour before.

"Rest, _draculina_," he called after her. "Renew your strength."

It was only the silent _please_ in his words that made her pause and nod silently before continuing on.

oooo

When she woke, Wash told her that she had been asleep for more than a week.

_Your husband did okay by you, despite his assumed bastardly nature. I naturally blame him for everything since I've never heard you say anything nice about him, or about him at all really. Still, I think Michael and Shiara would agree with me when I say you needed the rest._

She was angry though. The bloodbath in space had taken her away from the start of the Battle of Serenity Valley. She had been there only long enough for them to evacuate headquarters to the southern city of S. Morgenstern before she had been called away to investigate why some idiot major had picked a fight with the Alliance over some mythical load of cash. It had taken her a week to sort out the garbage and due to the unfortunate alignment of the Murphy system it had taken her close to a week and a half to get there and back in the first place.

Now, more than a month in to what she knew was going to go down as one of the bloodiest battles in all of history, she had awoken with fresh dreams, echoes of reality that screamed to her of all that was happening below. There was so much pain floating up from the atmosphere of the planet to where she lay captured on a spacecraft belonging to her captor and husband.

It overwhelmed her. Alucard had been right to say that she was weak. The screams and tears and horror echoed around her head endlessly and she was too tired to try and repair the walls of her mental barrier that had fallen in her sleep. She spent even more time lying there close to breaking until he sent her into the sleep again, barely avoiding her attacks as she vainly struggled to go to the soldiers that were crying out for aid, for her.

In the end it was two months that the battle waged, weeks that she waged a different sort of battle with the vampire who had been her master. Her only solace from the anger and frustration had been her pilot, his humor and kindness giving her a bit of peace until finally she got word that the battle was over, that the Independents had declared defeat. It was another week that she bitterly fought with her husband and then the generals that she had had so much respect for in the years they had worked together, only to watch them bicker needlessly as their men lay dying on the field.

Of course, by then she was strong enough to commandeer the ship and take matter into her own hands.

But, even then, it was far too late.

oooo

Zoe Alleyne sat on the hospital bed, polishing the gun in her hand. It was only days ago that they had finally been pulled out of hell and sent to hospitals and field ones at that. She had seen more people die in those last few weeks than she had seen in almost the entire war. Some of them she had respected. Most of them didn't need to. All of them, in the end, were for nothing.

She wondered idly, glancing up from her task only briefly to look over at the man who was responsible for saving her where he lay sleeping, if that fool Tracey had made it out alive, if he'd been at the battle at all. Almost everyone else she had known for more than a day or so hadn't. But fools have a way of living in war, the Sargeant was a fine example of that.

Two quite foot steps coming to a halt caught her attention and she looked up. Instantly recognizing the insignia on the woman's brown coat, she made to stand but was stalled by a raising of her hand. Zoe had heard often that General Victoria was a strange sort. The Alliance treated her like a ghost and the Independent forces treasured her and all at the same time, she barely looked old enough to enlist. But as Zoe looked into her tired blue eyes, she imagined that the woman was plenty old enough, plenty tired, plenty angry and plenty sad.

"Sir?"

"At easy, Alleyne."

For a moment Zoe was taken aback that the general knew her name but that just added to her desire to say what she felt needed saying.

"Sir, we don't blame you, sir. We got word real early on that you had been captured. We also got word all through the war that you were one of the first onsite to offer aid. We know who is at fault and who isn't."

Tears welled up in the blue eyes and she actually felt a bit embarrassed to have made the general cry. But the petite leader simply nodded, not letting the tears roll out.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Alleyne, even if I do not agree with it. I've heard a lot of good things about you and I hope you make your way when this mess is over." Her glance shifted to the sleeping man on the cot beside them. "I'd also appreciate if you kept an eye on him like you have been doing."

"Sir?"

She looked back at Zoe and smiled sadly at her inquisitive look. "I knew his mother and him sometime ago." When Zoe nodded an affirmative, she turned as if to go before looking back. "Will you do something for me?"

"Yes, sir."

Her eyes rested a while longer on Mal and Zoe had a feeling that she knew fairly well what this last battle had cost the man. There were tears in her eyes again as she looked back and met her eyes.

"Tell him I'm sorry."

"…Yes, sir."

* * *

AN: The next chapter deals with the space between the end of the battle (2511) and the start of firefly (2517) which includes how Mal gets the ship and River's time in the Academy...if that is anything of a teaser trailer.

On a different note, I need some ideas for a story I want to work on AFTER this is finished which involves Seras working as a homicide detective in an unusual homicides department. Its my first attempt at this sort of writing and I would be greatly appreciative of anyone who has any suggestions or ideas for the actual murders she needs to investigate (the weirder the better). All acknowledgement will be given to the presenter of the idea when it is used in a chapter.

I just, uh, need help .

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. It is wonderful to know that a few people still enjoy this nonsense.

Til next time!


	7. Undisclosed Desires

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)**

Note:...we are just going to pretend that those months did not exist. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and gave me story ideas. I have jotted them down. More below.

* * *

**Undisclosed Desires**

_I know you've suffered but I don't want you to hide._

_It's cold and loveless; I won't let you be denied._

_-You trick your lovers that you're wicked and divine._

_You may be a sinner but your innocence is mine._

oooo

"You and your family have, uh, issues."

Seras smiled good naturedly at the abrupt statement. "I can hardly deny the truth."

"You aren't quite normal, but I kinda like that." The childlike man shifted his weight nervously, scratching the back of his head before smiling beseechingly. "I wouldn't mind staying on, you know. I mean I never imagined signing up with just one person like this, always struck me as kinda boring. Would have signed up with a high class freight or cruise vessel were that the case." He paused again, blue eyes attempting to judge her reaction. "You definitely aren't boring, you know."

Her smile grew deeper and she knew that he was sincere and she knew what he wasn't saying, that he was worried about her being alone.

"Thank you, Wash. It's been a lot of fun. But I think I'm going to more or less settle planetside."

The piloted continued to look at her, his eyes searching for the truth in her words even though he knew well after all those years that if she wanted to lie to him, she would succeed. Finally his shoulders sank and his smile grew more sorrowful. "Never thought I'd miss a boss before."

Unable to resist, Seras reached out and gave him a quick hug. "It's not forever. I want you to promise me that you'll call if you need anything."

"Only if you return the favor," he grinned.

"Go find some interesting jobs to do."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Oh and Wash?" she called after him as he turned and took his first few steps away from her and all the craziness she had brought with her. He turned to look over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in question.

"Don't get caught."

"Yes, ma'am."

oooo

Most of the Verse was shaken by the end of the war. Worlds that had once had barely seen any Alliance presence now had constant occupation or in lesser cases monitoring. Those who had laughed at the foolish upstarts and had scoffed at the idea of a war lasting more than a few weeks, months at most, now lived with the fear and understanding that their world had come far closer to changing completely than they felt comfortable even considering. Soldiers on both sides struggled with going back to the day to day lives they had forsaken years before. Business men that had boomed in ware time now sought other ways to profit in the lack, desperate to make all ends meet.

There were some that couldn't let go. Some who could not take themselves away from the horror and devastation, who drew in on themselves and became people they had refused to be before. There were those who could not let go of the fight, who continued on in their harsh deeds. Those like that in the Alliance stayed on in the military or as enforcers for the scum of the Verse. From the ashes of the Independents, the Dust Devils rose up, little better than terrorist sin a Verse still in chaos.

Seras knew that she had a responsibility to try and stop them, but she couldn't she herself just another soldier who was having a hard time going back to the life of 'before'. In the years building up to the war, she had been building that rebellion. Her goal, her purpose that she had sought to advance was torn from her. There was no going back to that.

So, in the end, she tried to go back farther.

oooo

"No."

She blinked, nonplused by his refusal before she had done more than give him a friendly greeting. Seras glanced around herself confusedly, as if trying to assure herself that she was where she had intended to be and had said what she had meant to say.

"I will not let you back in here," Nikolai continued with a hastily covered grin, "until you spend at least a couple months resting."

"But-"

"NO," he resisted, more firmly. "This persona is about to retire. You can come back when my sun takes over the family business."

She just stared at him before sighing resignedly. "Fine."

"I'm thinking of something ginger. I've never been ginger before."

Rolling her eyes she shook her head. "You are already almost impoliticly rude. We don't need the mood swings of a redhead to add to it. They would kick you out for not being snooty enough."

"Rude and not ginger. Check."

"See you in a few months then, Nikolai."

"See you then, Seras."

oooo

She had to give him credit; he didn't say anything when she stood upon his proverbial doorstep unannounced. He merely gave her a long look before opening the door wider and letting her pass through. The moment was long and silent and filled with all the words said and unsaid, years apart and fervent moments together, the past, the present and the ever changing future. She waited for breathless moments for him to say something, anything, but his words remained unsaid.

And then it passed and she was just so tired, so worn. She just couldn't care in that moment. Suddenly, she was in his arms, clinging to him like the universe depended on it and he folded her into his embrace and in that moment, her world was complete and she simply let go.

oooo

She woke alone frequently.

At first, it had gone almost unnoticed, accustomed as she had grown to spending her nights alone, but slowly it began to bother her. He was less aggressive towards her physically as well. Their love making, when it happened, included a new sense of withdraw that she had never before experienced. It should have, perhaps, seemed normal in that light, waking in a great expanse of bed sheets alone in a space that seemed far too great for one person to fill. Those silks and satins whispered to her the morning of her planetbound life, hinting nefariously at the feelings of a one night stand and something horribly missing from what had been there before.

She knew, of course, that she had hurt him more than either of them really cared to admit. She struggled, as she surveyed the echoing emptiness of their…his bedchamber, why she had been so angry. Had it been about him in the beginning or had it been her frustration with the Verse and his unwillingness to share it? Had it been true anger with him or had she painted him red by association? Sometimes she couldn't remember and just felt so tired. Childish naiveté bubbling up, she wish that it could all go back to the way it used to be and she could live in peace happily with her husband and family.

Except, she wasn't that person anymore.

Hours had passed since she rose up from the swirling undercurrents of empty sheets and she taught classes without remembering a word she had said. Nothing succeeded in breaking her out of the world of whispers in her own mind until afternoon was well gone by its way and a young woman approached her.

"Mistress Seras."

The vampire turned from her shifting thoughts imprinted on a magnificent landscape to look at the beautiful woman who had called her name. Her first thought, as she woke to the present, was a mild curiosity to why it had taken the girl so long to come to her.

"I do not have enough time just now, Inara. Please join me in my retiring room after the final afternoon lesson. You will have all my attention then."

The young woman nodded, not appearing to be the least upset to have been so abruptly put off. She dropped a quick curtsy and left her instructor to an entirely different set of thoughts. Seras watched her go before returning her gaze to the landscape, still unseen by her present eyes. Subconsciously, a small smile perked the corner of her lips at having something to distract her thoroughly at last.

oooo

Mistress Seras had always been a mysterious figure at the Companion Training House. She typically only instructed those who were old enough to understand the value and importance of secrecy and trust or those who had been born into the life, caring like a mother to lost souls. She had been something like that to Inara herself and she had been even more pleased than most when the instructress had decided to remain at the Training House for some time after the war.

She knew the other girls gossiped about the strangely immortal family and the stranger idea that came with being committed to one person for all of time. Personally, she had always found it terribly romantic. Even before she had found out the truth about herself.

"Come in."

Ignoring the fact that she hadn't even knocked, Inara entered the intimate room and immediately spotted the eternally young woman gazing at her. The blue of her elegant brocade dress reflected her eyes perfectly, a testament more to her husband and daughter than to her own tastes the students knew. Still, it was beautiful to see and Inara smiled happily as she stepped further into the room, momentarily allowing herself to let go of her worries.

The woman stopped that moment instantly.

"I will not make you immortal, Inara Sera. Not only is it now impossible with your Companion…experience, but it is not something I would recommend any one do lightly. Nor desperately." She paused then, head tilting ever so slightly to the side. "Though, you would probably have been fine if you'd been changed in time. You have considerable will power."

Deflated, Inara sank heavily on the empty settee. She could feel the eyes of her instructress on her as she sat silently for close to a full minute before stepping out of her depression. Taking a deep breath, she sat up straight and met Mistress Seras' eyes once more.

"Is there no way you can help me? Nothing at all?"

"I would have called you here if there wasn't," the eternal woman smiled, voice slightly admonishing. "My…friend conducted a number of experiments with the effect of…immortal blood on a regular human being. Given in small doses directly into the blood stream, it had the amazing ability to…well to stop time inside of the body."

"You mean…," Inara began breathlessly, finding herself unable to finish her question.

"Meaning," Mistress Seras continued carefully, "that cellular growth – and decay – of all sorts would stop. When used over time, test subjects would find that they did not age and they did not grow ill, to an extent."

"To an extent?"

The blonde smiled mischievously for the first time since the day began. "Well it stops cellular growth and decay, not irritation. In fact it can make some symptoms worse. Allergies for instance, irritate and cause the body to overload but the body can't fight it as usual so…." She shrugged, eyes sparkling. "Still, diseases that worsen due to growth or decay on that level were stopped."

"Then…," Inara began before once again finding herself unable to continue as tears of hope and relief overwhelmed her. For a moment, her immortal professor allowed her to take it in and regain emotional equilibrium before her features grew serious once more.

"Everything has a cost, Inara." Her gaze was heavy on the student, piercing in its sincerity. "The longer each subject took the…treatment, the less effect it had. The time between doses grew shorter. The human body can amazingly accustom itself to anything. Also, those who took it regularly for an extended period of time felt adverse side effects. They did not live forever nor even as long as they might have without having started it." Seras lips turned up slightly in an almost bitter smile as she broke Inara's gaze. "Time must flow on."

"Then…why would you suggest this?"

There was a long silence then before at last the woman she had so long respected and card for looked to her once more, eyes painfully honest as she confirmed the worst.

"Because, without it, you do not have almost any time left." She closed her blue eyes for a brief second before opening them again, warmth seeping in. "I mean to…I am offering you the chance to stop time, to stall for a few years longer."

Inara nodded, mumbling a quick thank you and some words of confirmation as her mind made silent prayer. She stood to excuse herself, understanding that the conversation was all but over.

"One more thing, Inara, before I send you away with the promise of delivery tomorrow, should you absolutely decide you want it."

"Yes, Mistress?"

"In case time does not permit then, let me stress to you something very important. Do not ever take more than you should and never use it all at once. The results would be…well, not pretty."

"Yes, Mistress."

oooo

_"Father doesn't want you to know. He wants to keep you in the dark. to protect you or something." Michael sighed. "He's going to mutilate me but whatever, it will grow back. While he's got you stuck up here for months and months pretending everything is just fine things are getting worse. The shock has worn off and so many people are angry…. If you are up to it, I say its time you took a look for yourself."_

She sat in the gardens for a long while after Michael left. It had been a long while since he had spoken freely to her. For months, it seemed, he had merely sat during his visits, his eyes fixed on her as if uncertain whether or not it to speak but afraid either way. It was, she knew, even longer since she had spoken openly to Alucard. Finally, it occurred to her that this might be part of the reason why. Could he, perhaps, still be protecting her in his own misguided way? She had quite seriously begun to wonder if they were truly at an end and if he had begun to fade in his affections to her. This would point at the opposite, yet she couldn't bring herself to feel comfort in it.

Suddenly, she decided to go visit him. Just as quickly, she was on her feet and making her way to his retiring room where she knew he most frequently shifted to the Operative Institute. She had been there but rarely and needed the special memory of his most recent shadow walking to make the journey herself. Peripherally, she found herself glad that she was wearing his favorite of her dresses, extravagantly formal and lusciously flattering, he had always given her an appreciative smile when he saw her in it. It had been awhile since she'd worn it.

Ages and a war had passed since the last time she had set foot in the Institute. She had made little secret of her dislike of the place and what it did but for at least a while at the beginning she had gone to visit him there. Still, somehow the people who walked the halls seemed to recognize her quickly enough to prevent her (or more accurately _their_) physical harm. Idly she wondered if they kept a picture of her around or if it was Alucard's doing. A few people she recognized from the few visits she had made before and their sudden incursion of age was slightly more jarring than most that she had experienced.

It had really been a long time.

Each step down the corridors began to leech at the original buoyancy that had led her to the sudden trip. Sure, his keeping her from the ugly world outside might be his way of protecting her, but since when in all the time that she knew him did she need that sort of protection? Was it a sign of his affections or his possessiveness? Was he treating her as someone precious or as a piece of important treasure? How long had it been since they had had a conversation anyway? Her mind swirled around and around in dizzying questions of circular logic that she had almost decided to return home when she felt his mind brush against hers, letting her know that he had sensed her presence.

Straightening her back, she smiled as she stepped forward into view. He glanced over from his pupils, giving her a cursory glance as if to assure himself that nothing was wrong before nodding to her briefly. Content to wait, she nodded back, turning her observations to the students when he looked away from her. They seemed so very young to her even though she knew vaguely that these were his more advanced students. Already in their twenties, they were all but ready to go out into the Verse for the first time since they were brought to the Institute in their almost infantile state. She could feel their purity, their desire to do good, to do what was best for the people of the Verse and once more she wondered if she had been wrong. These were good people. They had been trained to do horrible things but that did not make them capable of doing them.

Maybe it was herself that had become so biased.

Her eyes turned to the last student in the row, the head of the class and the oldest. He was a nice looking boy – man – and she felt his purity, his belief, more than any of them. As if sensing her gaze, his head began to turn and she found herself smiling at him before their eyes even met. His dark eyes met hers with friendly curiosity and he returned the smile hesitantly.

Suddenly the world exploded.

Screams split through the air and it took her some time to realize that they were coming from her. The overwhelming torrent of images flooded her and she couldn't stop them. There was too much for her to cope with, too much pain. Finally, after what felt like hours, the pain began to subside and she found herself returning to her right mind. Around her stood the bewildered and worried students glancing between her face and the person behind her. She realized suddenly that she was on the ground and that someone was cradling her head and shoulders.

"Alucard," she murmured, voice cracking from the strain of her screams.

"Hush," he quietly commanded before curtly dismissing his class. The students stood, obviously torn, but nodded their understanding and made their way from the hallway. She had barely enough time to register their absence before finding herself hoisted up and carried bridal style into the previously occupied classroom. He set her down gently in a chair, eyes puzzling over her assumedly wrecked features.

"What did you see?" His voice was tired, almost bitter, and it startled her.

"I can't…" she shook her head slightly, unable to bring the images to solid enough form to give them verbal description.

"Of course not," he bit off angrily. "Why would the headstrong police girl tell the monster what scares her?"

She blinked, taken aback. Was that what he thought? "Alucard…no, that's not. I just…can't…."

"Can't tell your husband? I wouldn't understand? You talk about trust so frequently but how much trust do you really have, Seras Victoria? When will you stop playing the victim of all this? Did you ever think that if you told me what you saw, I might be able to help you stop these ugly visions?"

"Victim?" she shouted, sitting up straighter. "I was never playing the victim!"

He straightened himself, standing up on high to look down at her with an expression that was a mix between anger and disgust. "From the very beginning you played the victim, police girl. Always so obvious in your rejection of your new life, always so sad for the humanity that was ripped away from you."

Seras leapt to her feet, angry not for the first time that it gave her little advantage over her sitting position. "That was _centuries_ ago! I have changed since then! Did you ever think that maybe I didn't tell you because you didn't listen? You never want to believe that maybe something I say might count for something!"

"How can I believe your cries that the Alliance is evil and that this Institute is full of monsters when you give me no details? And when I refused to blindly believe, you run away and nearly kill yourself in pursuit of your little war! So like a child, you refused to give in even when it was done and then came crawling back so pathetically to someone who could protect you from everything."

"I didn't come crawling back for protection, _Master_. I came back because…," she trailed off, unwilling to state her affection after his accusations. "But you tried so hard to protect me, didn't you? You wanted to lock me away and keep me in a cupboard like some sort of doll that you can dress up and show off! I don't need your protection anymore Alucard, I haven't needed it for a damn long time!"

She stopped, staring at him and at the anger in his eyes. She knew, rationally, that he had every right to be angry with her but she had her own reasons as well. As her passion began to cool, she realized that he was still waiting for her to make all the concessions, still waiting for her to bend to his will. But she couldn't, not anymore. She was no longer his little fledgling draculina with no mind of her own, no will but his.

"But you don't see that do you," she murmured after a few seconds, cutting off whatever response he had been about to make. "You are right, Alucard. Maybe it was all about wanting too much, about being a victim."

His eyes were cold carnelian as he stared at her, his face not giving away anything. Finally, he spoke, voice ever so slightly unsure.

"Then maybe that should change."

Her lips curled slightly, her gaze ripped from his, and she nodded slightly. "Yes…I think so too."

oooo

The first sign of something wrong had been Michael standing outside of his quarters at the Training House. His face, so like his fathers, was changed drastically with great emotion as he looked up.

"Mum, she…."

He pat his son lightly on the shoulder before entering, expecting…something. Glancing around the room confirmed what he already knew: she wasn't there. He had wondered at the lack of her presence but he hadn't worried too much. She had developed the habit early on to wander off when she needed to think. But this was something different. On the bed, laid out with great care, was the dress she had worn earlier in the day. He had always loved seeing her in it. Laying on it was a folded piece of paper addressed to him. Picking it up, he stopped abruptly.

Below the note lay a familiar ring.

For a moment, he considered throwing the note in the fire, letting it be consumed hole and unread. He even considered doing the same for the well worn ring. The idea passed and he slowly unfolded the paper, unwillingly reading what was held within.

_You were right. I was playing victim for too long. It is time to stop. It is time to stop pretending that I am the same girl from that night long ago. I've changed too much to play the part you want me to, Alucard, changed too much to even really want to anymore. I mean to go on as I started and live the life I created on my own. All I ever wanted from you was for you to want to go with me, to follow me into something the way I had followed you all that long ago._

_ As you said to Hope so often, all things end eventually. All that matters is how they do. Let's let it end now before it becomes something ugly and perverse. Thank you. For everything._

He let the paper fall from his hands back onto the lavish dress, covering the ring once more. For a moment he stared at it, his face as expressionless as ever. Then, with a small sigh, he turned and opened the door, finding his son standing there, desperate to fight back tears despite his advanced age.

"She gave me a note, said that she was going somewhere for a long while, that she would contact me when she was ready." Michael broke off from his rambling, looking up to his father with eyes that cried out for something to make sense. "She just…left."

Alucard reached forward and placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "Do not be any more foolish than necessary, Michael. Your mother would never abandon you. She just needs…time and doesn't want to hurt you any more than necessary."

"I know," the younger man stammered slightly, "but…."

"I said not to be foolish. Only a fool would think that I would let go of what is mine so easily." He sighed, calming slightly at the hope that shone from his boy's face. "I have all eternity to convince her of that. I can give her a few years to think otherwise."

Finally a smirk grew on Michael's face as he looked at his much respected father. "You might not want to tell her that you think she is a fool."

"Perhaps not."

oooo

"You did a mighty fine job, Miss Seras."

She smiled up at her old friend. "Thank you. I think so too."

"Ready to leave this place then? Took you a long while. I was beginning to wonder if you were hitching up with another Pilot." Wash grinned down at her. "I'm a mighty jealous sort."

"No…just took some time to get things done," Seras laughed, shouldering one of her bags and hefting the other easily.

"I'll say. It's been almost three years since you called me all sudden like to drop you off on this rock." He gazed forward again and admired her hard work with the sense of appreciation that it was due. "Glad to see it done right, though. Think…you think you can move on now then?"

She stared at what amounted to two and a half years' worth of work before looking back up to him. "Yeah, I think so."

"You looking to take me on permanently then? I have to say that jobs between then and now have been fairly boring. Barely a test of my skill and I only rarely almost died."

"No," she shook her head as she stepped onto his ship, borrowed from his current job she knew. "Just asking for a favor."

"And that's what friends are for. Rushing across half the Verse for a favor."

"Don't worry. Soon enough you'll find your home. I know it."

"I shall trust you, oh great magical general, in the meantime…."

"Where are the dinosaurs?"

oooo

She stared at the gun in her hand for about the fifth time that day. It had done so many things at her insistence. How many of those she gunned down deserved it? How many soldiers…how many after? When the war ended and her sergeant had wandered off, broken inside, she had nothing left to return to. She had been conscripted, a soldier through and through from a world no longer the same. She couldn't let go of the fight, couldn't accept a life where her soldier's instincts had no merit. Nor could she allow herself to join the Alliance to be a soldier on their side. Some people could go back to being folk when the horrors of war were done, some could let go.

She couldn't.

She just kept on fighting until she wasn't certain who she was fighting anymore. She couldn't quite remember _why_ aside of that single fact that she had fought for him. After her family was gone, he had given her a place. But now her men were dead, her leader gone and all she had was the fight. She stared at the gun in her hand, seeing the destruction she had done since the war, the acts of what amounted to nothing but terrorism. She had been a soldier who had sought to continue a fight and joined the others who would not let go. But there had been no peace there, there had been no leader to follow nor followers to lead. She wanted to leave but didn't know how. Leaving would mean accepting what she was, a soldier with nothing to fight and no leader to follow.

Or, more simply, nothing at all.

"Zoe."

"Sir!" The response was automatic, her voice and body reacting before her mind caught up. She was already standing before she realized who had spoken to her. "Sergeant." Her voice almost broke but only almost and only someone who knew her very well would have been able to spot that she was close to coming undone. He was one of those people if not the only one and he knew her well enough to ignore it.

He looked at her and a new wave of panic washed through her and one of those rare moments when she felt like crying struck her. She thought he had been broken at the end of the war but now she knew tat he had still just been teetering on the edge. Now she saw a man robbed of everything, his family, his home, his life, just like she was. But he had gone one worse. Serenity Valley had stolen his belief, his soul and he was but a shell of the man he had been before.

Yet, here he was, come to save her.

"Let's go."

It was that simple, two words and a world of meaning and promise painted on them and on the look in his eyes.

"Yes, sir."

It was that simple, two words and a world of promise and understand that he still held one belief in that tired shell of a man who had been broken.

Hers.

* * *

AN: This was originally meant to be longer but I decided that the part I cut out would go just as easily in the next chapter and it would perhaps flow better. Also this was getting fairly long so I figured why not. That being said, I profusely apologize for the lengthy delay. I had originally wanted to update this by my birthday (Late June) but the weekend of my birthday went horribly, bitterly wrong. Then I had a bunch of other very bitter things happen that same week. And by the time I started feeling less mean and angry, I lost my job and was back to being mean and angry again. I got another job which had me working five billion hours a week. Then I lost that job too.

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.

Sigh.

All that being said, again, many thanks to the very kind reviews. I'm sorry it took so long. It might have been done months ago if not for the scene between Alucard and Seras at the instittue. I rewrote it about 20 times (literally) and I'm still not entirely happy with it. Its hard to not make Alucard a bad guy and not have Seras be a brat. Hopefully I somewhat succeeded.

I am about to embark on the chapters that take place during the Firefly series proper. I will warn that a lot of the mingling of the two verses will be subtle during that period of time since I think too much intermingling will ruin the dynamic of the firefly crew. Still, I am very open to requests at this point. If there is any particular scene from Firefly that you would like colored Hellsing red, let me know. I'd like to do it justice and I am somewhat at a loss for how to do it.

Thank you so much for your patience!

Til next time!


	8. Hysteria

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)**

Dedication: Once more to darling Peacewish whose character I am horribly plagerizing and who would be the person to get all of my inside jokes about Lord Masters...if she read Hellsing fanfiction to begin with. Also, to everyone else who has read this not-deserted-I-promise story

****Note: The main delay of this chapter came from my being unable to get it written in the way I wanted it to be. I started it about...20? times before I realized I was attacking it from the wrong angle and changed directions. After that it only took a few weeks .

I hope it is worth the delay.

* * *

**Hysteria**

oooo

_It's holding me, morphing me  
And forcing me to strive  
To be endlessly cold within  
And dreaming I'm alive _

oooo

"_The Independents have dinosaurs!"_

The thought turned silent battle cry invaded Seras' mind so suddenly that if it hadn't been for an already established awareness of this particular soldier, she might have startled on the controls at rather an inopportune time for a proper landing. Instead, she chuckled softly to herself and grasped the chance to, finally, talk back.

_"I don't remember having any dinosaurs at our disposal. Unless you include the plastic sort."_

There was a gaping mental pause, a silence that only someone with telepathic abilities could hear. It was a typical sort of pause, one that the vampire had become much accustomed to over the years. Few people with telepathic ability to communicate with others consciously knew it, so the first time they heard a voice inside their head that was not their own talking to them in a reasonable manner…well, startled was a mild description. Some fled, mentally and physically, unable to cope with the idea and what might have been a burgeoning psychic slipped into the nothingness of potentiality without actuality.

_"Oh?"_

Seras grinned. The question had been hesitant, tinged as they frequently are with that mild curiosity of whether or not they were actually going insane. But this…this was different.

_"I would know. I was a General. No dinosaurs."_

There was another long pause. _"That seems unfortunate. They would have been a great advantage. Not only would they have caused a lot of carnage but the repercussions of such a foe would have an amazing effect for psychological warfare."_

_ "Probably so,"_ Seras laughed. _"There would, though, be a question of how to feed them between battles."_

_ "That's easy. Politicians."_

Laughter rang through the cold and empty ship, thoughts of actual carnage momentarily forgotten at the joy of first contact and a clever mind.

oooo

It had taken a while for the legislature of Parliament to get used to having her back in the hallways once more after such a long absence. It took even longer for the staunch upper class members of Osiris society to get used to her new form of dress. Her rough clothes and tan leather jacket seemed more appropriate for life on the Rim than the society that she kept. Some even questioned, in whispers, her decision to wear brown outright. But people grew accustomed and answering whispers reminded that she had been fond of the color since before the war, claiming that she led an active life and it showed less in such dirt concealing clothing.

Time passed, as it is wont to do, while she settled once more into her life as councilor at large to the Legislative Branch. Some members of Parliament left and new members came on. One Lord Masters came to the legislature, breaking tradition of his family that had only served the Executive, and seemed to become a particular favorite of the favored lady of Parliament. They spent many hours drinking tea and discussing policy in his office. Rumors begin to crop up that the two were sharing a more…intimate relationship but those who had met the lady's frightening husband quickly urged them to quiet their suspicions lest they all end up something scarier than dead.

oooo

"What made you choose Erik this time?"

The pale featured man paused in his motion to light a cigarette long enough to give his companion a brief shrug. Graceful hands held the ornate lighter in place for a moment before flicking it shut and drawing the cigarette away from his face. He exhaled smoke in a long stream, careful to keep it from blowing into his companion's face.

"Random selection from a hat," he grinned finally. "You should try it sometime."

His companion shook her head, lengthening blond hair dancing gracefully from shoulder to shoulder. She was a jarring note in his elegantly appointed office which boasted rich woods, leather bound books and expensive tailoring to the casually discarded suit jacket. In comparison, her chocolate colored leather boots laced carefully to the knee were the closest thing to formality that the petite figure could boast. Even they were resting over the arm of his visitors chair as she sprawled out comfortably in a position that would have hidden even less if she'd been wearing a skirt instead of shorts.

"I can't see setting up a new family and lifestyle. I'm too well known."

Pale blue eyes looked her over humorously. "In that outfit, whoever doesn't know you will want to, or at least the menfolk. Did you steal those shorts from a passing teenager?"

She rolled her eyes. "They are no shorter than my old uniform skirt was."

"That is hardly saying anything." He eyed her accompanying white sleeveless button up shirt and gun belt slung low on her hips and buckled around her right thigh. It was all of a piece with the old fashioned leather duster and he couldn't help but smirk wider. "You look like Cowboy Barbie."

"I resent that. At the very least I should be Bounty Hunter Barbie, right?" She allowed him a quick chuckle before adding, "I was going more for a Lara Croft thing."

"You are showing your age, Seras." When his comment didn't garner any more response, he continued to gaze at her thoughtfully. Truthfully, she'd been dressing that way since she had reappeared on the Legislative scene. When she hadn't immediately contacted him as well, he wondered if something was amiss and when rumors began to circulate that there was something wrong with the Dark Lord and his Lady, he decided it was time to work where laws were being made. And there she sat before him, poised in a manner more casual than he had ever seen her. She looked like someone who had shed pounds of worry and had come up feeling light and free.

Like a child who had thrown off their pack and ran freely without care to the next danger.

He'd been tempted, of course, to catch her. His affection for her had never been a lie. But….

"If you sit there and think at me anymore, Nikolai, I may have to leave and find more cheerful company."

He grinned and stamped out the last of his cigarette before leaning back in his chair to look at her.

"So?"

Blue eyes lit up once more as she looked at him with anticipation. "I need you to help me find a girl."

oooo

The first time had been a shared dream. A pretty young girl with long brown hair executing a dance perfectly. Her toes perfectly en pointe, her fingers at the exact elevation in comparison with her hand, she was breathtaking. The girl was having the dream, a memory, and Seras had found herself forcibly invited into the audience. She was suddenly prisoner, watching a scene of great beauty.

She didn't mind.

Several more dreams crept into her mind over the months that followed. They were seemingly random incursions, memories plucked from someone else's mind. The girl began to look familiar, like one of the ones she had raised herself as the image of her life crept backwards and forwards in time. The familiarity echoed against actual memory but she could never quite place where she had seen the girl before. The random pattern continued for months without much curiosity – Seras couldn't understand any sort of pattern to them as she was never in the same place when they drifted to her – until the dreams themselves began to become more disturbed, as if the dreamer's waking life was seeping into her sleeping mind.

Familiarity had grown into affection and the idea of her young friend being in trouble became the motivator for her finding where her friend was at last.

oooo

"You were in my dreams. You sat in the audience and watched me dance."

"Yes, I did," the vampire answered the sudden statement without qualm. After spending so much time talking to the young girl in catches and bits, she had begun to understand the free flowing thoughts of the devastatingly intelligent and incredibly creative child.

"You applauded."

"Yes. You are very talented."

There was a silence, brief, almost like a gasp or a breath. A moment of intellectual pause and surprise that registered so clearly Seras felt that she could almost see the girls face across from her rather than the wind blowing over a cultured landscape.

"…You actually mean that. No hesitation or attempts to qualify."

"It's hard to lie to someone who is speaking into your mind," Seras responded automatically even as a frown etched itself onto her features. "Why wouldn't I?"

"They never did. They watched but they never saw. Movements without appreciation, sight without understanding, words without meaning. They were always the experts of that. So loving on the surface but caring more for position and propriety. A perfect doll on elegant strings to show case the roundness of culture and the depth of perfection."

"Your parents," the vampire returned quietly, the landscape before her suddenly growing too cultured and too pristine before her eyes. "Who are you, little one? Why do I feel like I know your face?"

"I saw you once, in a vision and a dream. You stood on the tops of a brilliant bridge in a land that exists in memory and legend and in reality that we do not know. You looked out over the water and your face was so sad and tired. I am much like that water and I think your face must be just as sad now."

"The River Thames? I can't think that you mean that your name is Tim, little one."

"I had never heard it said, only read."

Before Seras could ask further, the link was gone and she was left only with a landscape and frustration.

oooo

It was strange, to walk into a place of God, to look up at the Holy Cross and feel the Righteousness staring down at her. She had fought with prayer on her lips for so long, had slaughtered the innocent shells of the wicked and destroyed the wickedness born from innocence. She knew that she had fought for and alongside those who had believed well and hard in their faith, but even then, all those centuries later, she wondered at what God might make of her.

The moment passed and she moved on.

The living quarters in the monastery were not much different from what they had been on Earth That Was and rather ascribed to the more common name given to them: cell. Simplicity was cultivated among those who sought only their God and much of the personal adornments that would mark out the differences from one room to the next was absent. Which, in reality, made it rather hard to find one room among dozens if you had lost your way.

Thankfully, Seras had tred this path frequently, through the eyes of another.

He looked up when she entered and the look of shock on his face was quickly enveloped by the myriad of unsorted and labyrinthine emotions that connected the two of them. He parted his lips as if to ask how she had found him but before he could manage the words, she silently pointed to her eye and watched the emotions riot over his features again as he realized what she meant.

"I do not watch always," she murmured quietly, allowing him a moment to think. "Even a man of God has rights to his privacy. I only…."

"Keep an eye on me?" he replied, wry humor curving his lips as he relished the appropriateness of his simple pun.

She grinned back. "Something like that."

"To what do I owe the pleasure, General?"

The vampire shook her head slightly, eyes dropping for a moment. "Not General. Counselor at large to the Legislature of Parliament." She watched as his eyes narrowed slightly, the fierce intelligence that made him so useful before searching her words for deeper meaning. "My past is a great deal more eventful than yours, Shepard Derrial Book."

"A bit of an understatement, I'd think considering how many years have passed straight beyond you without stopping to leave a mark," he muttered dryly, hands touching his own more tired face.

"Yes, well, to put it nicely, I am taking advantage of my interesting past to keep an eye on them too. Or as Sun-Tzu said, 'Keep your friends close -"

"'And your enemies closer'," he finished for her, brow furrowed. "I always thought that was Shan Yu."

She shrugged, eyes glancing briefly at the clock ticking ever onward on his wall. "I have to leave soon. I only had a few moments to spare and it is too easy for people to find me here and I'd rather not have them bother your peace. I came only to give you an offering and…perhaps some advice."

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a card and handed it to him. His gaze turned from curious to confused as he found his own face staring up at him, a new IDent card gracing his fingers. Once again, she didn't give him time to speak and answered what he had yet to ask.

"You bear a burden that no man should and one that I placed upon your shoulders. While I have gotten away with very few the wiser, there are those who will always blame you still." She reached out and touched his cheek briefly, a sad smile slipping away. "It is only right that you be given the chance of freedom if you wish it. After all," Seras laughed humorously, briefly tracing a line close to his eye, "you only wanted to end the war as quickly as you could."

He allowed the touch for a few moments, reminded for the merest moment of a mother that he could barely recall at all, a mother from two lifes ago. Pulling away, Book frowned down at the card, not quite willing to take it or the unsought forgiveness and cleansing of sin that it seemed to embody. "What will this one tell officials when they slide it, then? To ignore me and leave me alone?"

She laughed again briefly, real laughter. "Let's just say that it will open any door you need to those who only care to look that deep. For everything else, you'll have to use your charm."

He laughed as well, carefully placing it on his bedside table beside his other personal possessions. He paused for a moment and cleared his throat before looking up at her once more, a wry glimmer in his eye and smile curving his lips.

"And the advice?"

"Advice may not be the word. A suggestion, perhaps, that it might be time to stop hiding from the world. It might be time to give to the Verse not as a soldier or a spy but as a Shepard, a true inspiration of change."

He looked back down at the card, eyes both tired and scared yet hopeful. "You think I can make a difference out there? Go out where the Alliance has its way and preach hope to those who have lost it, maybe?"

Seras smirked a bit, glancing at the Cross on the wall before looking back to him once more.

"Maybe just belief."

oooo

Shiara looked down at the large rough man who stared up at her with blue shock widened eyes from where he lay on the ground. She didn't blame him for his surprise; she was, after all, considerably smaller than him in height and build and she _had_ managed to disarm him and dump him into the dirt much easier than he could have possible imagined. She considered him, in those moments that he failed to react due to that shock. He might have been a good soldier, in a different life. He almost fought like one.

His stupor passed and he began to stagger up to a sitting position, scooting away from her as he did. She smiled in a mostly friendly way and offered no further aggressiveness towards him, holding her hands before her in a rather ladylike way.

"Now, Jayne, do you think you will need any further reminders that I am a _very_ happily married woman?" When he shook his head at her, shock turning to a mixture of anger and awe, she smiled wider. "Alright then, my offer stands. The job is simple. I am willing to pay you a great deal of money to steal the personal data save as well as any other pits of precious that you think you can get money out of. I am not interested in anything both that data save and you making sure that it looks like it was taken as an afterthought rather than a primary goal. Do you understand me?"

Jayne slowly got to his feet, eyeing her cautiously. "I understand that me and my man are the big, dumb and ugly thieves to take the laws mind off of what you want. If you, crazy scary lady that you are, are afraid of it, why should I put my neck out and be bait for your trap? No matter how fancy you may talk, I ain't stupid enough to walk into a trap that'll see me hanged. _Dong ma?"_

The vampire laughed, pulling her red hair behind her ears casually before meeting his eyes again. "Well there are three reasons really. The first is the money. I'm already offering to pay you a goodly amount and you have a chance to get even more since I have nary a care for anything that you find and, trust me, I know there is much to find. Second, I represent a group of very well placed and powerful individuals. If you get caught due to our efforts, we can get you out of trouble with such ease and speed that it is almost obscene.

"Finally", she continued, the sweet tone of friendliness turning deadly, "even a dumb man would realize that the price of information is often the highest given and that our chosen…mark would undoubtedly be very grateful for the knowledge of our plans. Since you have already assured me that you are not stupid, I can assure you that some of those powerful people I represent wouldn't hesitate to put you in a condition where death would look like a reward. And that's _if_ I even allowed you to leave here alive. _Dong ma?_"

The man stared at her a long while, his fine blue gaze piercing as he absorbed her threat with no visible sign of fear. Finally, he smirked.

"You know, lady, it's too damn bad that you are so happily married because you are my kind of woman."

Shiara grinned.

oooo

"I sent him letters, I need him to come to play but I cannot be sure he knows the game. He should of all people, should know the rules."

"Who, little one?"

"Big brother is so strong and so great. He is beyond amazing and doesn't blame his little sister for she could do. he lives to save while they broke her and her gifts are gone."

"He sounds like a good big brother," Seras murmured, fighting to keep the anguish from her tone at the way her psychic companion's mind felt fractured. "Where is he, little one? What is his name? Maybe I can tell him about the game."

"They tell me what to do, they play their own games. They tell me to leap and to step, to dance and to hurt. And they hurt me when I move. I break the rules because it is never what Simon says and I'm afraid I'll never hear what he says again but there is no going back to the beginning because they won't let me go."

The vampire shuddered behind the console, pain flowing through the mental connection, each stab splintering the girls mind further.

"I'm going to find you. I'm going to make them stop and take you home."

There was a long silence before a cautious query, "Are you my mother? The real mother who comforts instead of tricks and puts on display like so many dolls on a stage? Not the fake mother who stole me and my brother away from the World of the Ever Fair where those like us live?"

"Yes, little one. I'm coming to take you back to the World of the Ever Fair," Seras replied, at the verge of sobbing. "I will protect you from all those that try to hurt you."

"Yes…that's what Simon says."

oooo

"Did you know, my dear Seras, that there is a satellite floating around our fair planet?" Lord Erik Masters commented almost jovially, planting his feet on his polished desk.

Seras looked at her vampire friend with cool yes, barely glancing away from the file in her hands. "I'm fairly certain that there is more than just one, actually."

"Ah," he continued knowingly, "but this one is far more interesting than the average. It just happens to be full of people." He paused, watching with a growing grin as she sat up and dropped her feet heavily on the ground. "There, I see I have your attention. Now, also unlike the average satellite this one just happens to not be in geosynchronous orbit. It floats around freely, never in the same place twice."

"Which explains why we always connect in different places," she murmured with dawning understanding.

"Precisely. They have established themselves as an Academy for the tremendously gifted. Very covert and not run by the government but definitely sponsored by it. Or certain parts of it."

"The parts of it that don't typically include you and me, I take it," Seras muttered darkly.

"There are probably quite a few that know about it, really," Nikolai commented with the same wry humor. "I'd say a good large number of them but they pretend they don't. Because they are nice and afraid."

She nodded, standing up to look down at him, fire alight in her blue eyes.

"Get me in."

"Yes, ma'am."

oooo

It was a small group, only ten including Nikolai and herself. The first display of their amazing students to those who had sponsored the fine Academy. Most of them were faces she only recognized in passing just as they knew her, the rest ones she had never seen at all. If they looked surprised to find her part of the group it faded to the sort of knowing look that made her feel nauseous. If she didn't know them before, they would be engrained in her memory after that day.

The man who was giving them the tour of the facility kept an ongoing monologue about the different practices and training, sounding for all the Verse like a principal of some exclusive school for rich brats that was showing off to hopeful parents and expectant investors. She listened to none of it, nor did she need to, safe in the knowledge that the entire day would be found in Nikolai's memory the same as if they had brought in a recorder. Even if he didn't, and if she'd wanted to, she wouldn't have been able to.

The screams were deafening.

Their steps echoed loudly in the empty hallway and the silence in the surrounding rooms was suffocating. But the screams. Never before had she felt so many cries so loudly in her mind. A school for psychics, no school at all. So many voices, so much pain and terror. It was overwhelming and more than once Nikolai had to catch her as she stumbled in her steps.

Finally, they came to a stop, standing on a catwalk that overlooked a great gymnasium and training chamber. They watched, for a few minutes as she moved far below them. Her every move was a picture of grace, the violent movements turned to beautiful dance. It was breathtaking. A chime sounded and the movement stopped, her figure still as a doe in the woods at the first sign of danger. Her orders given, she took steps to the door, her entire body crying a wish to stop but for the knowledge that only pain would follow if she did.

Filing back down the catwalk in a similar direction, Seras fought to keep standing, the force of horror on her mind almost more than she could handle. Nikolai was holding her by the elbow, subtly keeping her upright with his preternatural strength. It was only minutes before they were led into a room that seemed like a combination of surgery room and torture chamber. By the time they were walking in, she was already strapped into a chair, eyes wide as they injected her with a sleeping draught. Tears began to spill over as she met Seras' eyes.

_Please…save me…._

_I will and I will make them pay._

oooo

"Aidan, wakeup."

"As an incorporeal voice in a computer system that never shuts down it would be hard to wake up since that would necessitate sleep."

"Shut up," Seras commanded not entirely with heat.

"That's harder."

"I found her. Her name is River Tam. I talked with her parents a few times before the war. I'd seen her before. Playing with her brother." Her words were unsteady, colored with melancholy and regret. "She asked frequently for her brother. Find him."

"Yes, Great Mistress of Secret Ops."

The uneasy silence lasted hours in mind and seconds in life. She felt like screaming or being ill and even momentarily regretting sending Nikolai on his way, if only to have someone else near in the flesh. Talking computers only went so far for comfort and this one usually went considerably less.

"Found him," pseudo-Aidan chimed, breaking the horrible quiet of screeching thoughts. "Simon Tam. Highly respected surgeon making rather obscene amounts of money. His background reads like an atypical genius, nothing but good marks and happy social life. Well loved by all."

"Simon says," Seras muttered bitterly realizing that she had had the right clues all along. "River Thames and Simon says. God dammit!"

"…if you are done cursing at incorporeal all powerful beings, much like myself, I'll tell you the most interesting part."

"What?"

"It says that the ever esteemable Doctor Tam has fallen out with his parents. There seems to be some rather questionable behavior recently. He has forgone social occasions and instead has been lurking around the restricted areas and been caught talking to people he shouldn't. One police record states that he was arrest and, when his father came to make bail, the two had a rather loud argument. Seems that young Simon has a great concern for his sister's safety that his parents do not share. His father all but disinherited him then and there."

"Bastards."

"With parents like that, I'm sure he wishes he was," the console remarked wryly.

"Your humor continues to suck, Aidan," Seras sighed, unable to resist a smile all the same.

"Coming from you, wouldn't that be a pun, O Vacuous Vixen, The Succubus Seras?"

"Just get me his address and shut up before I turn off your personality again," she growled with a grin.

"The horror!"

oooo

"Michael, Shiara, how would you like to help your mother orchestrate a prison break?"

"Can we bring father?"

"No."

"It would make it a great deal easier."

"You mean it would be like cheating!"

"When do we start?"

oooo

Simon tried not to shift nervously in his seat as he stared at the man across from him. It was probably thanks to all those horrific social gatherings his parents had dragged him to throughout the years that he was able to but even if it were the case, he would never thank them for it. The wave had come in the dead of night, void of picture and only gravelly sound. There was finally a chance at some real answers, answers that lay in the man who sat across from him.

The man who frankly looked younger than him and more than a touch naïve.

He seemed to feel Simon's skepticism as his lips curled up at the sides with a smile. "Yeah, let's just say that I'm the least noticeable of my group."

"Group of…?"

The man leaned back in his chair, his long dark hair falling from his shoulders to hang behind his back and his crystalline blue eyes piercing. "I represent a party who wants to help you and your sister, a party who wants to see that those who are responsible for this heinous crime get everything that they deserve."

"Heinous crime?" Simon repeated, choking on the words slightly. He sat forward, fear racking through him. "What are they doing? I-I haven't gotten anything real, no substance, just rumors. Please, tell me what you know!"

Those piercing blue eyes darkened and the man looked away for a moment before meeting Simon's gaze again. Pain and revulsion filled their depths. "We don't know what they are doing." He raised a hand to stop Simon as he opened his mouth to protest. "We don't know precisely, but we do know that they are doing…tests, experiments on their, on her, brain."

Simon just stared at the man, willing the contents of his stomach to remain where they were and cursing in every language that he knew and shouting at every god he had ever read about. How had they let her go there? How had they blindly been led and let those men take her and do…. Why hadn't their parents questioned closer? Why hadn't he _known_?

"Now, big brother, we are willing, and able, to help the two of you. We can get in the facility, get her out in cryo and take her off-world to a designated place of our mutual choosing. However, we need funding to do so."

The shock fading away, the doctor's innate intelligence flared up and his suspicion returned. "If you can do all this, why would you need my money?"

The man grinned briefly. "Fair question. I realize it sounds like a scam so I'll give you as much of the truth as I can."

"I'd appreciate that," Simon retorted dryly.

"To put it to a point, we need your money to maintain secrecy. The people I represent, and myself quiet honestly, have more than enough funds to do this ourselves but, as you mentioned, our ability to 'do all this' means that we are more closely scrutinized than you are. While they do not question our every expenditure, if large sums of money suddenly went missing from our accounts, you can be sure that the wrong people would learn of it."

The man sat up and pinned a fierce look on Simon and the doctor suddenly felt like all of his sins were being held up against him.

"Also, Doctor Tam, we want to make absolutely sure that you care more about your sister than your money, your prestige and your social situation because I can guarantee that if we go through with this, you will have none of it."

Slowly, Simon nodded before looking down at the drink that had so far sat untouched on the table. He picked it up and an uncharacteristic show of irrationality, downed the alcohol in one go. Slamming the glass back down on the table, he coughed once and met the man's eyes once more.

"I don't care what you have to do. I don't care what I have to lose. Just get me my sister back and you can have whatever you want from me."

With a genuine smile, the man held out his hand for Simon to shake.

"Well, then, Doctor Tam, my name is Michael, and I'm one of the crazy bastards that will do that for you."

oooo

The sleep was coming on her quickly but she wasn't afraid. This sleep would have dreams but they would be her dreams and not the monsters' dreams. And she would wake up and the world would be different and shiny and better.

She could feel her, on the edge of her presence, a shadow cast along the light. A shadow that brought vengeance and abhorrence and would bring a wrath so mighty to those who had harmed her that she almost felt pity. But pity wasn't something she felt for them. Not then. She welcomed the drugs as they seemed to order her thoughts more than being awake did, slowing thoughts down so they passed one by one in order instead of all at once and in chaos and without sequence. She felt calm for the first time in so long that it was almost enough to make her fear.

Almost but not enough.

_You came back._

She sent her whisper out into the space beyond the void and beyond the screams and beyond the pain. She sent it out to the woman she knew was there but could not be seen and yet was seen in every action that the quiet men made as they helped her so gently onto the path she would have to take. She was there when they turned their eyes towards her nakedness and when they gave her cloth to cover herself as she stepped inside the entirely too small and confining chamber that would serve as her coffin and her bed and her little Trojan horse and her neat package to the Verse beyond the hell and sorrow. She was there.

_Of course. Sleep. When you wake, he will be waiting for you._

_ Will you be there?_

_ When the time comes. Sleep._

And she did.

* * *

AN: I am not happy with the scene with Book but to make myself happy would have delayed it greatly. I may rewrite it (again) later. The scene with Jayne was supposed to take place "off screen" but I missed him too much not to give him some love. Also, the next chapter obviously starts with the timeline of Firefly proper so...YAY! Or something.

I hope it was decent in the end. I wrote it in about 15 different sections and then pieced it together later. Hopefully the flow didn't suffer too much.

Hopefully I will be able to get it out much more quickly than this chapter, which saw delay in some part due to the holiday. I snagged a job that occasionally lets me write while I'm there (as there is nothing else to do) and that should help the writing process. I also have my laptop back from my friend which should help as well since I won't have to be at my desk (or home at all) to work on parts of it. I really do love this story and hate the delays. Sigh.

All the same...thank you to everyone for reading it anyway!

Til next time!


	9. Endlessly

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Firefly_ any of its characters or the wonderful universe it is set in. Joss Whedon has that privilege. Nor do I own _Hellsing_ any of its characters or what remains of its universe inside of this story (I think I've covered this before but ah well). I do own a few people, an Atlas of the Verse and many, many, MANY hours of research that was put into this story. (Kinda pathetic I know)**

Dedication: I want to thank everyone who has reviewed, from the first reviewers to the newest, including JustKalEl who left a completely amazing review but it was unsigned so I couldn't respond personally. I also want to thank everyone who sent a private message asking me if I was still working on this and everyone who is still reading. I am extremely honored and always grateful. I keep every single comment and PM in an inbox in my email because every one of them means a lot.**  
**

Author's Note: Ah, that being said, I apologize profusely for the YEAR long delay between chapters. I have been taking obscenely and insanely high number of hours to attempt to get my bachelors that much more quickly and much of my writing prowess gets focused on the rather idiotic papers I have to put out to get those A's. I have spent most of the past week going over notes and rereading chapters and restudying various bits of research I've done. I have had a real problem trying to imagine how to do these chapters that take place during the episodes of _Firefly_ and still haven't quite figured it out. However, I think i'm just going to give it my best effort and hope you will forgive me if they are slightly (or way more than slightly) lame. I owe it to every single one of you to get this done, done soon and done to the best of my abilities.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Endlessly**

_But I won't give you up_  
_I won't let you down_  
_And I won't leave you falling_  
_If the moment ever comes_

oooo

So many voices. So much chaos. The neat and orderly rows of thoughts filled with numbers and science. Steps and structure and notes. Always notes. and the others. Their voices always quieter – she had always been the star of them all burning cold and bright until supernova was all but inevitable from too much theft of other nearby stars – quiet voices with control learned from pain.

All gone now. but not gone. She was gone and had found new voices. Voices that said much and nothing. It was so new and different. It hurt sometimes. Too much chaos and disorder and no map or compass to guide her until she found her own. Or made it. Something about the voices made her sure that help was important until somehow she could help herself. Lost in the chaos and in pain.

But not alone.

And not afraid.

She had forgotten what happiness was like.

oooo

Simone wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time if not the millionth, how he had found himself in his present situation. Sure, tending to a pretty girl with a bullet hole in her lower abdomen wasn't particularly uncommon for a trauma surgeon, though, thankfully it _was _at least somewhat unusual. but tending to a girl who was shot because e of him while he was more or less using her as a hostage to ensure the safety of his sister seemed far more unusual than he could ever have imagined in the fairly straight forward course of his life.

Still, instinct kicked in, followed by the training. If he could thank his parents for anything anymore it was for being able to keep calm in any circumstance, no matter how absurd. His practiced hands and well-structured mentality got him through the surgery and kept his mind in some sort of rightful order as he operated on the sweet girl who had been bashful and sincere to him in ways he had almost forgotten people could be. The training absorbed his mind so thoroughly that it kept carrying in the way it normally would with thoughts of post-op care after he made his mental prognosis.

Which is why, perhaps, for all his gifted intellect that he didn't realize what the Captain meant until he was chasing him, stumbling, through the door.

oooo

One of the things that his Ma had told him and something that Aunt Vicki and even Lady Serentiy had confirmed was to never let them see how angry you were. Anger and emotion just give your enemy the advantage. He couldn't rightly say who had suggested that he keep a strong sense of humor as his first defense but that had saved him as much as anything when tragedy struck and war hit hard.

Some days he wondered if he felt much at all.

Today was not one of those days.

Not only did he have a Fed pointing the Alliance at him, but now Kaylee had a bullet in her and some damn fancified boy from the Core with a price on his head was trying to us e her to save his hide. That anger only doubled, though, when he kicked the top of that damn crate and found a young naked girl doped up and packed up like meat for sale.

He'd heard about it for years, o course. The rich bastards on the Border or out on the Outer Rim would get enough money that they thought they were better than the land they shat on and would pay a high price for a bargain bride from the Core. Never from the too prominent families, hell typically they were serving class girls that no one cared about. But they still had soft skin and a pretty enough accent to make the money well spent. And if she fought when she woke up, that was just more fun.

He'd always kind of wondered at the phrase "seeing red", but he understood it quite well then. It had only taken seconds for him to piece together how easy it would be for a doctor to make some extra credits on the side by putting some of his patients under only for them to wake up on the other side of the Verse. A doctor who had just put his filthy hands on Kaylee. The red began to clear away some as the cloudy gases were clearing away from the girl and as he wondered if the poor girl even had a family to realize she was gone. He struggled, some would even say valiantly, for those scraps of humor that he always prided himself on.

All he managed was, "huh".

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy struggle and yet all he could do was stare. She must have been something to look at once. Something about her, even asleep and all naked, told him that she had suffered a good bit before she was even put in the box.

"I need to check her vitals," the bastard doctor struggled out, attempting pathetically against Jayne's stronghold.

Finally, he found that sick humor. He looked up at the doctor. "Is that what they call it?"

The boy kept on struggling, his eyes pinned to the box and the girl in it. "She's not supposed to wake up for another week! The shock could –"

"The shock of what?" Mal broke in, that red coming back again. "Waking up? Finding out she's been sold to some borderworld baron? Oh, I'm sorry," he broke off, fighting for that damn humor again before he killed the boy on principle, "was this one for you? Is it true love? 'Cause you seem – "

He broke off, startled, and stumbled back with a strangled yelp as the girl woke up with a scream. He watched, unable to look away or even move really, as she made her way awkwardly out of the container and spilled onto the floor, making scared cries all the while.

The anger faded into the background as he stared at the poor girl who had just been taken from everything she knew. He could feel nothing but pity and roiling sadness in his stomach at the thought of what might have happened to her if they hadn't found her first. He was so focused on the sight of her sitting there in a heap of unintelligible cries and fear that he hardly noticed the doctor getting the better of Jayne, who – fair enough – had become a bit distracted.

"River?"

Something about the doctor's voice struck a chord. It wasn't his knowing her name, he should know that much at least, but something else. Fear and worry of a kind not associated with pacifying some girl you just inducted into the time honored trade of human trafficking.

"River." The boy reached out and touched her and the girl screamed and jerked away, turning her head to avoid looking at him. "River. It's okay. It's okay. I'm here."

His voice was absolutely calming at that point as he gently held the girl and encouraged her to look at him. Before Mal could decide if he should interfere, the girl – River- looked up at the boy, tears in her eyes, and then jerked around to glance at all the people around her, strangers just staring, dazed.

"River."

His voice draws her attention to him again and Mal, standing as close as he was, could tell the moment that recognition burst into life in her eyes.

"Simon…?

She burst into tears and the small sort of calm that she had found in recognizing the doctor shattered. Mal could only stare, anger and pity only slightly suppressed by the confusion that had settled in at the realization that the rich boy trying to tell the girl that she was safe was something very different from human trafficking. Something a whole hell of a lot worse.

"What is this?"

The doctor was defiant as he looked at Mal, eyes nearly as watery as the girl's, who he was holding close to him as if he could protect her from everything in the Verse.

"This is my sister."

….well, hell.

oooo

So many voices and all so angry. Scared too. Fear and pity and confusion and so much anger. But safe.

Finally safe.

Almost.

oooo

Seras woke with a start, the vivid images of her dream slowly fading from behind her eyes. She shook her head, as if to dislodge the last traces, and wondered if she had to worry about Mal putting an ironic end to her successful rescue plans. It was beyond implausible that such a wide variety of those she had devoted so much personal time and interest to had wound up on one fairly small ship. Her eyes dropped down to where the gloves that covered her hands for the better part of a millennium had once been. Integra would have accused her of doing it on purpose and Serenity would have looked at her with laughing eyes. Alu-

She sat up abruptly, pulling her feet down from where they were hanging over the arm of the blush chair. Looking up, her eyes met a decidedly amused ice blue gaze.

"Enjoy your nap?" Nikolai drawled with a wide smile. When she didn't respond, the smile grew into a grin. "I can't imagine what you must be up to that would cause you to be exhausted enough to pass out somewhere outside of your own domain. I mean, you even broke into my office! How daring."

"Shut up," she growled, cheeks flushing red. "I've been busy and you weren't here, but you'd be lying if you said you actually minded."

"You should of course feel free," he conceded, "and I am always happy to help." His gaze grew daring as he leaned back in his well-appointed chair and lit a cigarette. "especially when you are going to project such interesting dreams. Tell me, Seras, are _all_ your dreams visions of fact rather than fantasy?"

She gave him a long, somewhat less than friendly look, taking a moment to decide on whether or not to give him the truth he arguably didn't deserve, asking in such a way. Finally, she shrugged and sank back into the chair, tossing one leg over the other and bouncing it agitatedly.

"Yes. There are only farseeing dreams now." She passed a hand over her face and sighed tiredly. "An ever flowing stream of…"

When she trailed off, he sat forward, flicking the ash into the exquisite crystal ashtray. "I would grant you dreamless sleep if I could, my dear. An eternity like that is nothing anyone should bear."

She smiled at him affectionately before her eyes flicked to the celling, gazing sightlessly at the random design of the white panels.

"It's his fault. He never saw the future and rarely viewed the present, but the pasted haunted him endlessly." His fault too, she added, so carefully silent to herself, that they were worse now since he had been the only one able to help keep them at bay.

"Him, I refuse to pity," Nikolai remarked snarkily. "If I thought it would benefit me, I would be rid of him in a more final way, but it would not do me any good at all would it?"

Seras looked down at met his eyes again, playful and yet oh so serious, and a sad smile played on her lips. "Afraid not. Though, if its any consolation, I wish it would."

The ancient vampire chuckled, blowing out a long stream of smoke as he took his turn staring at the ceiling.

"All these years and I can never get the girl."

Sitting upright slowly, she looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes, analyzing. "Just how old _are_ you, Nikolai?"

He dropped his eyes to meet hers and smirked. "That would be telling."

"Could you really do it?" she asked, brow furrowed and eyes intent. "Are you really old enough and powerful enough to kill him?"

His eyes sparkled with practiced mischief as he picked up a file on his desk and held it out to her.

"I have a new project for you, if you are taking a break from infiltrating secret government sanctioned facilities."

She took the folder from him, curiosity and restless getting the better of her. Gtlancing inside, she almost found her attention captured, but managed to keep her focus long enough to look back at him.

"You didn't answer my question."

"No," he laughed. "I didn't." His smirk grew more dangerous and the light in his eyes more promising. "Maybe if you give me a reason, I'll give you an answer."

Seras stood slowly, file in hand, and went to the door, plucking her coat from the rack. She gave him another glance just before stepping through and found herself slightly started as, for the first time, she felt fear of the eccentric ageless vampire. He winked at her, grinning happily, and she found herself laughing as she stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

All these years later, and she still only attracted the crazies.

The laughter died away as the memory of her dream returned to her between meetings with the other, more legitimate, members of Parliament. A few hours and many tiring conversations where her mind was decidedly elsewhere later, Seras was reminded that there was always at least one opinion she didn't have to gaze backwards into time to guess at – though whether or not that was fortunate or not was a different idea all together.

"Did you perform some sort of crazy vampire magic to get all of your pets on one ship? Magical Mistress?"

"Shut it."

"Yes, oh Gloriously Gifted One," the computer chimed in less than reverantly as she took a look at the ever present feed on the screen inside the viewing room. Judging by what she saw from her unwitting spy in Shepard's clothing, her hard work helping the girl escape had not gone to waste and no one had killed anyone else.

Yet.

oooo

Mal didn't rightly know what it was that brought him to the infirmary after the Reavers had decided to skate on by, the only bit of luck he'd had in the past week, weeks…hell. He knew that Kaylee was still under, thankfully so, and he'd never had any particular care for the hospital type places. So, he could think of no reason in the Verse that brought him to the cold and sterile room nor why he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Why he found himself staring at the girl.

He'd threatened to shove both of them outside of the airlock if the doctor didn't do right by Kaylee and save her life. He'd said that they'd be getting off at Whitefall, which was fair close to a death sentence for the soft sort that they were, specially with the girl looking to be a bit off even if it was only trauma. Still, as he looked down at her where she slept so deeply he could scarce be sure she breathed, the idea of either was revolting.

She'd done nothing wrong.

He knew that, as he stared down at her, looking young and innocent and like all sorts of hell. Hell, she was further proof of what he already knew, that bitter reminder of why he'd fought the war in the first place. She'd been a bright and charming sort of girl, according to her brother, and now was apparently just about crazy and maybe just on this side of broken. She'd done nothing wrong, nothing but wanting to learn, and they had betrayed her trust and ruined her.

Hell, he couldn't even say that the boy had done wrong, aside of dumping his problems on other people and it was just like the proper rich folk to lack common sense. He'd stepped up to help his kin and sacrificed his life and money and made himself a fugitive all to help a sister that he had every right to be jealous of and hate. Judging by the fact that they were on _his_ ship giving _him_ problems, he warranted that he'd done more than their parents had. He reckoned that they'd abandoned them both and kept to their fancy social lives and piles of money.

So, there he was, still just staring at her. Mal knew that if he kicked them off his boat, alive or dead, the image of her in that box and the image of her lying there on a glorified countertop, they would never leave him. If he kicked them off his boat, their fate would haunt him and he would always wonder at their fate and hate himself for abandoning them to whichever Fed or bounty hunter that would drag the girl back to her own private torture and the boy to jail, likely never seen again. No matter what logic he might argue himself with, solid and fine logic at that, he knew it all the same.

He stood staring at her, mind in chaos, until he heard Kaylee shift and call out to him, distracting him finally from his thoughts.

oooo

The voices were further away now, quieter. Whispers of ghost conversations that had finished and were still in the middle of explanations and telling secrets echoed passively in the quiet that vacant shouts and anger had left behind. Things were at peace and arrangements made, or would be made and though there was something coming soon or had already come or maybe it was all backwards, for the moment she was at peace, swimming in softer flooding whispers.

Sunlight and warmth flooded onto her and she looked over at the girl of earthly knowledge and skyward disposition.

"Hey there, sweetie. Feeling better yet?"

"Less noise and quieter. Rest doesn't help but understanding. Maybe sleep," she allowed, realizing that at least the warrior priest had met sleep, or had he? He was sleeping and wakeful and that was then and this was now, but which came first? Others were gone and there were only whispers and distant tickles of touching thoughts dimmed by the life and soul of the ship, sleeping itself but breathing all the same.

River shook her head, for a moment becoming River Tam and not just River Mnemosyne, full of memories, or River Styx, full of death. "You are Kaylee."

The brunette girl full of sunshine and an unfortunate bullet hole nodded with a happy, if understandably tired, smile.

"And you're River, Simon's sister."

River nodded. "For now." She looked at her sideways and upright as the both lay down in varying levels of comfort in the room of needles and sickness. "Are you doing better? Should have asked first. More important."

"Oh don't say that! And I'm just shiny. Your brother fixed me just fine."

River Tam smiled proudly. "He is best. Doesn't know, won't admit. Doesn't care. His soul says to help and save and so he saves people…." Her voice faded and she couldn't fight the wash of pain and joy and guilt and gratitude that followed the reminder of what she had woken up knowing. He had sacrificed everything for her. A solid fact that she knew like stone. Just as well, a stone that weighed heavier, staying in place in the tides of winding whispers and smoky thoughts, she knew, too, that she was not worth the sacrifice.

Suddenly, the waters shifted and the screams crashed upon the shores and the traces of River Tam were lost in echoes all but unheard. Something moved, a shift in the stream coming closer and closer. What shape it took she couldn't think. "Simon," left her lips immediately as she sat up, carried by the surging of whispers that rippled in the wake. But what shape? The warrior priest was down and the crowd of chaos had receded, all but gone and all far away. Standing, she followed the currents, the whispers all but drowning out the flesh and blood laying right beside her inquiring after her. Something was there, a shape she wasn't certain of, felt but not seen. She stepped over the precipice and into the outside. Then, as they always do, the serpent leaped out of its hole and caught her in its coils.

ooo

She'd doubted him and that hurt him almost as much as the knowledge that they were hurting her. Simon knew, in the way a good brother should, that she hadn't doubted him in the same way he knew they both doubted their parents through the years. After waking up and stabilizing enough to attempt coherent conversation, River hadn't even bothered to ask about them. She'd simply known, the way she always did. But she'd doubted him because she had been that afraid, had hurt that much. It had just taken him too long, too long for her to continue to hope without eventually caving in to doubt and hopelessness. They'd had her for three years and, as he looked at the pain and love and gratitude in her eyes, he felt ashamed that it had taken so long.

He wished, as he watched her fall under the influence of the medication, that he'd been cleverer, that he'd been able to think like she would have and been able to come up with some sort of plan that would have ensured their safety. Instead, the two of them were on a relic of a ship, mixed in with questionable people and unable to really guess at what course to take, at what might be safe.

River would like them, Simon knew, when she woke up. She had always loved meeting new people and coming across interesting personalities. He imagined that she and Kaylee might become friends and that he would, at some point, find her playing with the dinosaurs that the pilot kept with him. Inara and Shepard Book would probably help with their share of worldly wisdom and the first mate, Zoe, seemed to be the level headed and accepting sort. They would be good influences on her, he was sure of it, he needed to be. Well, Jayne….

Standing up, he covered her up again and made his way out of the small room as silently as he could. She had grown so much since he had seen her and yet in some ways he was exactly the same. A bitter wave washed over him as he realized that their parents would probably never see her and see what she'd become.

Simon flinched away from his own thoughts as he moved away from the passenger dorms and towards the front of the ship where the cockpit was. He needed to speak to the Captain. No matter how much River might like the people on board with them, he knew that they were unwelcome passengers. Still, despite his dislike of the man in general terms, Malcolm Reynolds had earned the doctor's respect. He'd protected River when Simon could only stand there, flustered and conflicted, and he'd handled each situation that had been thrown at him in the past few days with a sense of humor and some measure of cool intellect that gave proof that he'd earned the loyalty of his people.

What would River make of the Captain, Simon wondered briefly as he made his rough way past Jayne the Barbarian. It was likely that neither of them would know. All the same, the doctor found himself wondering just how the man would deal with her and if she would be able to push him off balance at last. And how she would deal with him, a man who had stepped up to protect her, even if only for a minute, when her parents had shown only apathy and abandoned her completely.

oooo

"I found what was different in the compressors."

Seras glanced up, a little startled, s her daughter entered the room, her steps bouncing with the energy that always come over her when she was on the brink of discovery. Her husband followed behind her, more cautious in his excitement as he typically was.

"What did you find, Shiara?" Seras queried, putting her work down.

"It's an anomalous chemical compound which appears to change and adapt almost biologically upon introduction to certain levels of heat and other chemicals, a few not all, in the terraforming processor kits. Specifically, the air compressors. It was previously overlooked because the composition was larger than was expected and when broken into the component molecules, there is nothing present to give rise to suspicion excepting in their increased frequency."

"…okay," the older woman responded slowly. She chose her next words carefully, not wishing to start the ultimate scientist on a path that would lead to an overly scientific explanation using phrases and terminology that Seras was simply too tired to figure out at the moment."What …does it …do?"

The question brought the redhead up short, a frown settling on her lovely features, and a grin making a quick appearance on her husband's.

"I don't know."

The grin on Michael's face grew wider as his wife's shoulders sunk at the admission. She turned to glare at him and he tactfully cleared his throat in an attempt to gain some seriousness.

"What, ah, she means is that we aren't sure wand she wanted to see if you knew."

"Me?" Seras asked, doubtfully. "I'll look but I doubt my cursory chemistry and particle knowledge will have anything that you don't already know."

"Honestly, I agree, but better safe than sorry," Shiara commented wisely as she handed both the original compound structure and the reacted to her mother-in-law.

"We already asked Father," Michael chimed in unapologetically.

"Glad to know I rank lower than he does," Seras remarked dryly as she looked over the data carefully. After a minute, she shook her head and handed it back to Shiara's waiting hand.

"Nothing to do with rank, Mother," Michael responded placatingly. "You just care about the end result and results overall, etc, whereas father is simply willing to humor our curiosity."

"Somehow," his mother commented with a severe look, "I doubt that." Leaning back in her chair, she looked at both of them comprehensively. "What _do_ we know then?"

Shiara perched lightly on the arm of the chair that faced Seras' desk. "We know what it _isn't_ more than anything, really. we know it is not an environmental compound."

"Meaning that it isn't affecting the outcome of the terraforming?"

"Yes," the redhead nodded. "Nothing I know of that goes into the terraforming processes changes when introduced to this compound."

"which means it is not aimed at terraforming but something else," Michael concluded quietly.

A quiet feeling of uneasiness grew in Seras as she looked at her equally troubled children.

"Find out what it does to people. I have a feeling that this may be a lot more serious than we first thought."

"Already working on it."

"Well, work quickly. I have a hunch and I am extremely interested in being wrong."

"Yes, ma'am," Shiara agreed quickly before bowing and leaving the room, that same energy in her steps. Michael stayed behind a moment longer, unsure of the sudden worry in his mother's face and equally unsure that he wanted to know what was causing it. His gazed dropped to the folder open on her desk before he smiled a quiet goodbye and left the room, curious as to when his mother had started investigating Reavers.

* * *

Additional note: I'm sorry if there were more typos than usual. Not only do I not have a beta, I am fairly sure that I am missing parts of my brain pan. I am already working on the next chapter (which may or may not cover several episodes rather than just the one). I also hope to (FINALLY) get out the strange rewrite of a fairy tale that I've been working on for the past like...2-3 years. But these chapters have higher priority so we'll see. It is themed for the Winter Solstice so we'll know then!

As always, thank you!

Til Next time!


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